Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Well, that’s science fiction television for you, though,” Abnett said. “Someone’s got to be the red shirt.”

Redshirts by John Scalzi

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This book is a satirical love letter + wink + elbow nudge for fans of Star Trek. As any Trek fan knows, those wearing redshirts get killed. Minor background person you don’t know anything about getting more backstory? Killed. Someone about to do their “last away mission” before moving on? Super killed. Though on the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid (which exists in a different universe) the redshirts are dying in a similar fashion, they band together to try to figure out what is going […]

CBR15 Bingo: Strange Worlds

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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CBR15 Bingo: Strange Worlds 15-word-review: Delivering food during the pandemic leads Jamie Gray to a monstrously exciting new career opportunity. Longer review: During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jamie Gray is working a dead-end job as a delivery driver for the very same company he got fired from. One day, when delivering food, Jamie runs into an old acquaintance, Tom, who remembers that Jamie’s thesis was on science-fiction and therefore thinks the job opportunity that KPS, the “animal rights organisation” that Tom works for might be a […]

The Kind of Fame That’ll Warp My Brain

Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir by Wil Wheaton

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CBR Bingo: Star (Both because Wheaton is a celebrity, and also because of Star Trek) It feels like there’s been a lot of talk lately about child stars, what with Jennette McCurdy’s book coming out and the recent allegations against Fred Savage. Between all that, reading Still Just a Geek, and reading snippets from House of Hilton about Kim Richards, I’m starting to think maybe we should just ban Hollywood from using child actors? In the early 2000s, Will Wheaton published a book of essays (Just a Geek) […]

Should be listened to in audio format if at all possible

Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir by Wil Wheaton

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I have wanted to listen to an audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton (of “Stand By Me” and Star Trek fame) for a while and when his annotated memoir Still Just a Geek came out it seemed like a good one to try.  Fellow Cannonballers, I did not expect the emotional journey I was about to take when starting this book.  In the opening, Wheaton says that he is going to try his best to make it seem as though he is sitting down having a conversation […]

“We should be focused on saving the Interdependency from collapse. Instead we’re playing palace intrigues. It’s pointless. It’s wasteful. And it’s going to end in our ruin.”

The Last Emperox (The Interdependency, #3) by John Scalzi

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A good ending to the series. This hasn’t been my favorite of Scalzi’s series (I still hold a very fond place in my heart for Old Man’s War), but it was overall a great read. It also takes his usual smart-ass style and amps it up to a thousand. The tongue-in-cheek tone makes for a nice contrast with the serious subject matter, and makes it so that when a character is doing something serious, you feel it more than maybe you would otherwise. I’ve been […]

I finally got around to the one I was saving

Armada by Ernest Cline

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I’m a big fan of Ready Player One, especially the version read by Wi Wheaton.  So I knew right away that I wanted to listen to his narration of Armada.  (I bought it right away when I got my Audible account, and then saved it.)  Ernest Cline obviously loves video games and the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, and the ‘90’s too.  The amount of pop culture he includes in his books is impressive.   For some reason, I thought this was written way before it was.  Ready […]



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