Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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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

Trans YA horror in a small town

Lockjaw by Matteo L. Cerilli

August 2, 2024 by LB Leave a Comment

Lockjaw by Matteo L Cerilli is a YA horror that explores small town niceness and what makes a monster real. I’m still fairly newly into horror and very particular, but I like seeing the themes of monstrosity explored through marginalized lenses, so I took the chance to read Lockjaw with glee. This is a story told from several points of view and does some time jumps that aren’t obvious, for reasons that become evident about halfway through the book. I found several elements absolutely heartbreaking, […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Horror, Young Adult Tagged With: Ghost, haunting, horror, Matteo L. Cerilli, monster hunting, queer, Small town, small town horror, trans, YA

LB's CBR16 Review No:10 · Genres: Fiction, Horror, Young Adult · Tags: Ghost, haunting, horror, Matteo L. Cerilli, monster hunting, queer, Small town, small town horror, trans, YA ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Trans and Transitions

Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham

July 10, 2024 by Jake Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: liberate. Carlotta is coming home from prison, which is some sort of liberation and she’s trying to find her way as a trans woman in the world, seeking her own path to liberation. I’ve written before about my beef with contemporary writing and how smarmy it’s become. Every villain has to twirl their mustache, every hero has to overcome a specific obstacle to warm the audience’s heart, everything is so boringly Manichaean. There’s little space for complexity, imperfection, growth, […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Brooklyn, cbr16bingo, Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, James Hannaham, LGBTQIA, liberate, New York City, trans, trans character

Jake's CBR16 Review No:103 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Brooklyn, cbr16bingo, Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, James Hannaham, LGBTQIA, liberate, New York City, trans, trans character ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

June 2024 Leftovers

The First Quarry by Max Allan Collins

Kings of the Garden: The New York Knicks and Their City by Adam J. Criblez

Out On The Cutting Edge by Lawrence Block

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nevada by Imogene Binnie

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford Dictionary by Simon Winchester

Exalted by Anna Dorn

July 5, 2024 by Jake Leave a Comment

Happy Pride to all who celebrate! The First Quarry**** I was disappointed in the quality of the last couple of Quarry novels so I wasn’t expecting much…but this was good. One of his best plots and I really enjoyed it. Could’ve done without the racism. Big believer that you can show the casual racism of the past (1970s) without wallowing in it and the book does that. Otherwise, it’s good. Kings of the Garden: The New York Knicks and Their City**** Stretching a four star […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Fantasy, Fiction, History, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Sports, Suspense Tagged With: #fantasy, #history, Adam J. Criblez, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Anna Dorn, astrology, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, crime, dictionary, Exalted, grief, hip-hop, hitman, Imogene Binnie, Kings of the Garden, lawrence block, lewis carroll, LGBTQIA, los angeles, Matthew Scudder, Max Allan Collins, mystery, NBA, Nevada, New York City, New York Knicks, Notes on Grief, Out On the Cutting Edge, Quarry, rap, Simon Winchester, The First Quarry, The Professor and the Madman, trans, true crime

Jake's CBR16 Review No:99 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Fantasy, Fiction, History, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Sports, Suspense · Tags: #fantasy, #history, Adam J. Criblez, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Anna Dorn, astrology, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, crime, dictionary, Exalted, grief, hip-hop, hitman, Imogene Binnie, Kings of the Garden, lawrence block, lewis carroll, LGBTQIA, los angeles, Matthew Scudder, Max Allan Collins, mystery, NBA, Nevada, New York City, New York Knicks, Notes on Grief, Out On the Cutting Edge, Quarry, rap, Simon Winchester, The First Quarry, The Professor and the Madman, trans, true crime ·
· 0 Comments

An Interesting Queer Horror

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

December 27, 2023 by LB 2 Comments

One of my favorite elements of horror from queer voices (and other marginalized identities) is the examination of monstrosity and what makes for horror. I think Mandelo comes at it from an interesting angle in this novella, and I really did enjoy the final arc with Stevie. I also enjoyed Stevie and Les’ dynamic over the course of the story, seeing that call of like to like but also hesitancy given the locale. In many ways, though, I don’t overall know how I feel about […]

Filed Under: Fiction, History, Horror, Short Stories Tagged With: 1920 Appalachia, Alabama, historical horror, horror, Lee Mandelo, nurse, queer horror, t4t, t4t romance, the woods all black, trans, trans man, trans masc

LB's CBR15 Review No:16 · Genres: Fiction, History, Horror, Short Stories · Tags: 1920 Appalachia, Alabama, historical horror, horror, Lee Mandelo, nurse, queer horror, t4t, t4t romance, the woods all black, trans, trans man, trans masc ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

This duology will rock you!

Godly Heathens by H. E. Edgmon

Merciless Saviors by H. E. Edgmon

December 26, 2023 by LB 4 Comments

I read HE Edgmon’s debut, The Witch King and immediately knew he was an author to keep an eye on! And his newest duology, The Ouroboros, shows so much growth and development as an author and story teller. Godly Heathens is currently available, and I’d recommend this duology more for older teens than a crossover audience, especially as there is significant violence and gore throughout (content notes are provided in the front matter). Merciless Saviors releases April 16, 2024. Logistics out of the way, let […]

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: chosen family, duology, godly heathens, h. E. Edgmon, HE Edgmon, merciless saviors, messy characters, nonbinary, Ouroboros, Ouroboros duology, queer, Seminole, trans, unreliable narrator

LB's CBR15 Review No:15 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Young Adult · Tags: chosen family, duology, godly heathens, h. E. Edgmon, HE Edgmon, merciless saviors, messy characters, nonbinary, Ouroboros, Ouroboros duology, queer, Seminole, trans, unreliable narrator ·
Rating:
· 4 Comments
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