Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

October 2022 Leftovers

Batman: The Impostor by Mattson Tomlin

The Son by Jo Nesbø

Killer Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury

The Devil's Wedding Ring by Vidar Sundstøl

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Happy belated Halloween to all who observe! Again, I don’t have as many leftovers as I did in recent months since I’m logging so many full reviews for the Book Bingo. But here’s what I got, all of them quality 4-star reads…   Batman: The Impostor Really enjoyed this one. A fresh take, helped by the fact that Batman is surrounded by characters with no history. Jim Gordon is off the force. Alfred has forsaken him (or vice versa). No Joker, no Riddler, Penguin functions […]

Look for the Bare Necessities! Classic storytelling, talking animals, and a scoop of racism.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

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CBR 14 BINGO: Snake, because snakes figure into multiple stories in this book (Kaa the snake in Mowgli’s stories, and Nag & Nagaina in “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”) The Jungle Book has got to be the classic “Love it AND Hate it” book. On the one hand you get classic storytelling by a Nobel-prize winning author and talking animals. On the other hand, you get to feel uncomfortable in a way that only a 19th-Century white man born under the British Raj in India can make you feel. […]

Little Bits of Awesomeness

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 by Carmen Maria Machado, Editor

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I love short story collections. They’re perfect for reading with a meal or while waiting for an appointment. You won’t get so involved that hours go by, but you get a little slice of great writing. I almost always have a short story collection stashed in the car or my backpack for emergency reading. All I can say about this collection is Wow! Ms. Machado has done an amazing job of selecting some of the best SF and Fantasy published in other anthologies in 2019. […]

A Fairytale Romance

The Scarlet Circus by Jane Yolen

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In this collection of eleven short stories, the reader encounters love in its myriad forms – romance, but familial love and friendship and love of duty too – all splashed with plenty of fantasy. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I did not recognize Jane Yolen right away – she has written over four hundred books, and it turns out that though I have not read any of them, I knew plenty of them. Anyway I have rectified that sad oversight with The […]

A really good anthology! Emmalita and andtheIToldYouSos were not kidding.

Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices by Eds. Swapna Krishna and Jenn Northington

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This is one of the best anthologies I’ve ever read. If you like Arthuriana, this is a must read. If you like anthologies just for the variety, this collection is a winner. I don’t think I will ever give an anthology five stars, because I’ve yet to find one where I like every story, but this one comes pretty close. There were only two stories in here I didn’t like. What makes Sword Stone Table so great is that the authors chosen really had their creativity flowing. […]

An English Summer

Get Your Duke On by Kathryn Le Veque, Chasity Bowlin, Alexa Aston, Maggi Andersen, Meara Platt, Mary Lancaster, Caroline Lee, Elizabeth Johns, Cerise DeLand, Bianca Blythe, Nadine Millard, Amy Jarecki, Sofie Darling, Merry Farmer

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CBR 14 Bingo: Heart There is a lot of romance, folks. It’s summer in Regency England, and there is lots of romance to go around – for there are many dukes on the lookout for a wife! I love a good anthology. They’re a nice way to dive into variations on theme, sure, but even better they are a sampler for various authors, and a good way to find new ones. And considering I had never read any of the authors here, I was certain […]



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