Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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Sapphic golem fantasy debut

The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez

September 9, 2025 by LB Leave a Comment

The Maiden and Her Monster fulfills the “diaspora” square for CBR17 Bingo. As soon as I learned of The Maiden and Her Monster, I knew I needed to read it. I love explorations of Jewish experiences and especially love different ways the golem story can be reimagined. Set in a Medieval Prague inspired setting, The Maiden and Her Monster follows Malka as she ventures into a cursed forest that has been killing the girls of her village so she can free her imma from the Church’s idea […]

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction, History, Religion Tagged With: ashkenazi, cbr17bingo, debut, golem, historical fantasy, jewish, Jewish folklore, lesbian, Maddie Martinez, magic, pogroms, queer, religious persecution, sapphic, tor publishing

LB's CBR17 Review No:21 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, History, Religion · Tags: ashkenazi, cbr17bingo, debut, golem, historical fantasy, jewish, Jewish folklore, lesbian, Maddie Martinez, magic, pogroms, queer, religious persecution, sapphic, tor publishing ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

A hopeful future with robots and food

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

May 27, 2025 by LB 1 Comment

If you need a story of chosen family and hope and good food, Automatic Noodle absolutely fits the bill. This is a delightful novella of a near-future where California has split from the United States after war, and part of California progressiveness was to give civil rights to human equivalent embodied intelligence (HEEI) robots. But those rights are limited – they’re not able to use a bank, own property, and there’s lots of prejudice against robots (very allegorical to American attitudes towards immigrants and marginalized […]

Filed Under: Featured, Fiction, Short Stories, Speculative Fiction Tagged With: #food, Annalee Newitz, friendship, near future, noodles, novella, queer, Romance, San Francisco, tor publishing, trans

LB's CBR17 Review No:5 · Genres: Featured, Fiction, Short Stories, Speculative Fiction · Tags: #food, Annalee Newitz, friendship, near future, noodles, novella, queer, Romance, San Francisco, tor publishing, trans ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

A fantastic story of consequences and regrets

Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur

May 10, 2025 by LB Leave a Comment

I received an advance copy from the publisher via Netgalley for review purposes; this in no way influences my review. Blood for the Undying Throne releases Oct 28, 2025; Blood of the Old Kings is available now. There may be spoilers for book 1 of the Bleeding Empire. One day at the library, I happened across Blood of the Old Kings on the new releases shelf, and because I’m doing a reading challenge for 2025 where one of the prompts is a translated SFF, I […]

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction Tagged With: #fantasy, Anton Hur, bleeding empire, book two, Korean, sung-il kim, Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur, tor publishing, translated fantasy

LB's CBR17 Review No:7 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction · Tags: #fantasy, Anton Hur, bleeding empire, book two, Korean, sung-il kim, Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur, tor publishing, translated fantasy ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments


Recent Comments

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