Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“One human female, slightly rumpled and creased from a long time in storage. Expert pilot, trash at basically everything else.”

Cytonic (Skyward, #3) by Brandon Sanderson

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How many left turns can one book series take? Not that I’m complaining. I wish book four was right now. And will I finally give five stars to a book in this series? I guess I will find out by the time I finish writing this review. (You are already aware if you are reading this right now. Writing is like time travel!) This is book three in Sanderson’s YA sci-fi/space opera series, Skyward. I liked the first book just fine, but book two, and […]

A final book that does this wonderful series justice.

Leviathan Falls (The Expanse, #9) by James S.A. Corey

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I cried, because I am nothing if not predictable. This was a good ending, but I’m not sure five stars worth? Also, I’m not sure what exactly happened there at the end. Mostly, I’m even more excited to do my full-series re-read in 2022. I did all of these except #4 on audio the first time through (because Jefferson Mays didn’t originally record that one) so I spent 2021 slowly collecting the paperbacks in preparation for my re-read (I also will be purchasing the 10th […]

“We’re both exiles, she’d thought, right then, and had hated herself for thinking it. She’d been gone a few months. She had no right to the name. She was home. She wasn’t, and she knew it. (There was no such place any longer.)”

A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2) by Arkady Martine

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What a great series, top to bottom. I don’t even want to talk about it. (Or, I want to talk about it for five hours straight.) I kind of already want to re-read. If you like science fiction, this is a must read. It’s so self-assured, so smart, so well put together, so full of heart and yet also full of thinking. It’s so hard to find an author who can stimulate both my thinking brain and my feeling brain, and Arkady Martine is a […]

‘The spook and her pet’ take on an alien empire in this amazing sequel – and Bingo #2!

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

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CBR 13 Bingo: New Series – This is the sequel to A Memory Called Empire which was published in 2019 and completes my second bingo. I loved A Memory Called Empire , in my review said it was deserving its spot on the Hugo nominee list and I was delighted when it won!  The follow up, A Desolation Called Peace, is similarly incredible.  In preparation for reading this, I found an excellent recap that goes over individuals and factions, and their motivations.  I highly recommend it. The […]

Angels of Punching You in the Face

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Earth’s crust and mantle have been peeled back by the Architects and shaped into a beautiful flower. A beautiful, uninhabitable flower. Maybe this is a reflection of my age, but I kept thinking about how clean spaceships were in science fiction when I started reading. The governments were huge global or galactic entities demonstrating how humans had unified, and often how they had integrated into a system of many alien species. There was an orderliness to science fiction worlds, even if the protagonists were rogues […]

“The Empire, the world. One and the same. And if they were not yet so: make them so, for this is the right and correct will of the stars.”

A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1) by Arkady Martine

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**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 12/30 I was so intimidated by this book before I picked it up! There’s a certain attitude that often comes along with intelligent sci-fi with lots of made up names (so many vowels!), and which plays around in the political intrigue sphere. Like, let’s just confuse the shit out of you before we settle into this! Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks! No hand holding! I will show you I’m smart by making everything so hard […]



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