Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Poetry and Politics Can Be Interesting

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

by Leave a Comment

I am starting to wonder if my local library hasn’t hired someone new in charge of new purchases who might not be my reading twin. The library has suddenly started getting in new books that I personally want to read not long after they are published. A Memory Called Empire is among those titles. The premise is pretty normal sounding: a new ambassador to the capital of the Teixcalaanli Empire (which spans planets and systems) arrives at her new job to discover that her predecessor […]

A place to belong

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

by 9 Comments

You guys, these books. I really, really liked The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It made me deliriously happy with the intricate character profiles, the worldbuilding, the way I felt like I was among friends almost from the start of the story. I didn’t want to leave the Wayfarer. And I knew the second book — this book — was going to do that, leave the Wayfarer, and journey off with Pepper and Blue to Port Coriol. And I’d met them already and […]

After I finished this book, I needed a nap, a hug, and a warm plate of brownies.

Death's End (Remembrance of Earth's Past, #3) by Cixin Liu, transl. by Ken Liu

by Leave a Comment

Whoa, Nelly, I have such mixed feelings about this book. Part of me wants to give it five stars for sheer scope and ballsiness, and the magnitude of the ideas he’s working with here. (Also, Ken Liu is back as the English translator, and I vastly prefer his work to the guy who did book two.) The other part of me wants to plant my feet in the middle of the room, cross my arms, and just bellow the word “NO” into the air so […]

This only made me want book nine more. But still no release date.

Auberon (The Expanse, #8.5) by James S.A. Corey

by Leave a Comment

As with all of these Expanse novellas, I had a bit of a hard time getting into it (new characters, new setting, very discombobulating), but it had me by the end. Auberon was published after the eighth book, but it takes place right after book seven, when Duarte’s empire is just getting started. The Laconians have installed a brand new Governor on Auberon, one of the many colonized worlds of the gate system that will be instrumental in feeding the empire, and he’s our main POV […]

Space Opera Done Fantastic

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

by Leave a Comment

You guys, I really, really liked this book. Let’s start off there. It combines what I loved in the first parts of The Expanse series with Star Trek, stirs in the best bits of Firefly, and then adds a bunch of its own stuff. It’s very good. If that’s all you need to get you started, then go forthwith and devour at the next available opportunity. But I can’t get away with that little of a review, and I don’t really want to anyway, so […]

If you haven’t read Star Wars: Bloodline, you might want to before reading this one.

Star Wars: Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse

by Leave a Comment

This was a very solid book that very much did its job in prepping me emotionally for SW XI. I have lots of thoughts and Bloodline feelings, but this probably won’t be as full review as I would like it to be. My brain is tired. This is really Poe’s book, although Leia and Wedge Antilles (!) have major roles to play as well. It picks up just days after the events of The Last Jedi, with Leia and Poe struggling to rally allies and build up the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo