Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A perfect example of what modern fantasy can do.

Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy, #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Loved this! Just a straight up great fantasy book right here. Great, unique worldbuilding. Loved the characters. Loved the exciting, heisty plot. Perfect build up to the next book. I just loved it, okay! I think I had this idea from just looking at the cover that this book was going to be kind of dark and dour, and it’s not at all. It’s clever and funny, and yes there are some darker places where the characters experience hardship, but it’s also just a really […]

Lord save me from a sad sack narrator.

Magic For Liars by Sarah Gailey

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The premise here is: What if your sibling went to magic school and you’re a muggle? And what if you’re a private detective hired to solve a murder at a magic school? Both of these are intriguing separately. Together, I could not resist this book. Unfortunately, I did not like it nearly as much as I wanted to. Parts of it were stellar, and parts of it absolutely did not work for me. Our narrator is Ivy Gamble, a struggling private detective whose twin sister […]

Magical Teenager – just a bit more contemporary than Harry

What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

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This new novella in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch covers events that happened in summer 2013 when his primary protagonist Peter Grant was off solving the case of a missing child in Herefordshire (The Hanging Tree). During that summer we follow Peter’s cousin Abigail Kamara in London as teenagers go missing around Hampstead Heath and then turn up later missing their memories. At this point Abigail is still not formally attached to “The Folly”, but she has already been exposed to the […]

I Just Saunter Amok These Days

Ballistic Kiss by Richard Kadrey

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Sandman Slim is still my favorite urban fantasy series. As Ballistic Kiss opens, Stark is living alone, doing his best to deal with his PTSD, trying to figure out what he’s going to do with this new life now that Candy has moved on with Alessa (he doesn’t blame her, he died after all), and whether or not he’s willing to move on with Janet (they/them) from Donut Universe. I listened to the audiobook narrated by MacLeod Andrews. He is still an excellent narrator. Thomas […]

all ABOARD!

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

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Mysterious and melancholy adventure awaits! Otto and Xavier, legally paired but not traditionally wed, receive a lavish not-honeymoon gift from a fabulously wealthy aunt: a trip on a strange and fabulous train. They don’t know where they are going, why they have been invited, or who is truly pulling the strings behind this event. They don’t know if the reclusive woman who lives full-time on the train (what a dream!) held up a sign that said “HELP” or “HELLO”, and they don’t know if they […]

“I’m dealing with a lot of scary things. I think you have to react to them. And you either laugh at them or you go insane.”

Death Masks (The Dresden Files #5) by Jim Butcher

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I feel like I’ve probably mentioned this in all of my previous reviews of this series but I’m going to mention it again right out of the gate: this book is read by James Marsters, i.e., Spike from Buffy, and he IS Harry Dresden, a delicious and perfect choice for the browbeaten, sarcastic, hapless, chauvinistic wizard. And that is what Harry is. I’ve scanned some reviews that are like, “ugh, when will Harry learn” and “he’s such a chauvinist” and well yes. But that’s the […]



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