Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

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The first of the Southern Reach Trilogy is probably very familiar to most Cannonballers, so I won’t spend too long summarizing. A group of four women experts are sent in to investigate Area X, an environmental anomaly that has subsumed and remade a section of coast and wilderness and seems to be expanding. Theirs is the latest in a string of failed expeditions, after previous groups of men have either never returned, or come back changed. The women are given no names, only titles, and […]

I Didn’t Hate It But You Might

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Annihilation is the first in a trilogy about the mysterious Area X; cut off from the rest of civilization for decades, nature is taking over the landscape and hiding the area’s many secrets. An expedition of four women is sent to investigate, and they realize very quickly that all is not as they’ve been told. For one thing, there’s a mysterious underground tower that’s not marked on any map and what they find there will quickly divide the group as they try not to be contaminated […]

Starting off the New Year…

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Yes, I am aware that this is the last book in VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. And yes, I do see the irony in the fact that my first review of the year is of the final book of a series. That being said, I’m gonna cheat a little bit and use this review as an excuse to discuss all three books, and remember in future years not to start a series at the end of the year. Over the past couple months I’ve made a […]



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