Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Ancillary Space Opera

Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

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Target: Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1) and Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch #2) Profile: Science Fiction, Space Opera The Imperial Radch series is a relatively simple little space opera, in the classic sense of the term.  Spanning hundreds, if not thousands of years, multiple star systems and a variety of cultural influences, it’s a series firmly rooted in the tropes of its genre.  While Ancillary Justice does wonderful things with those ideas and concepts, building a surprisingly compelling setting and cast, the series as […]

Egyptian Nights

Cairo by G. Willow Wilson

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Target: G. Willow Wilson’s Cairo.  Art by M.K. Perker Profile: Modern Fantasy, Urban, Middle Eastern, Graphic Novel Cairo is, in many ways, a prototype for G. Willow Wilson’s later novel, Alif the Unseen.  They are stories of clashing cultures. Both the complex internal clash between Islamic hardliners and the culturally diverse youth of the Middle East, and the more external, if no less complex conflict between encroaching western culture and the entrenched lifestyles of Muslims.  By necessity, Cairo is more spare, crashing through a much […]

The future is ADVENTURE! Ready, Steady, GO!

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

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Target: Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One Profile: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Pop Culture, Adventure! Ready Player One is one of those books that’s been sitting on the shelves at Barnes and Nobel taunting me with nearly universal acclaim for longer than I care to think about.  Not only that, but it falls clearly into my ‘near future, speculative fiction’ bailiwick and even focuses on video game culture, so I really have no excuse as to why I’m only just now adding it to my library.  […]

Sticks and stones may brake your bones, but words will turn you into my meat puppet.

Lexicon by Max Barry

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Target: Max Barry’s Lexicon Profile: Speculative Fiction, Thriller As I have written before, I find book recommendations to be more annoying than useful (which raises some interesting questions about why I write book reviews).  There are so many variables involved in what makes any given book appealing to a given person that, without a history of literary compatibility, it is almost impossible guarantee that any two people will like the same book.  Still, every so often I’ll follow up on a recommendation or a particularly good […]

This review is of dubious value to the forces of Light

New Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

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Target: Sergei Lukyanenko’s New Watch.  Translated by Andrew Bromfield (The Watches pentalogy #5) Profile: Modern Fantasy, Suspense, Horror Sergei Lukyanenko ostensibly drew his Watches series to a conclusion with Last Watch, but almost six years later he released a fifth book.  New Watch is a very different kind of novel than its predecessors.  It draws inspiration from other contemporary and urban fantasies, most notably the Harry Potter series.  There is a greater emphasis on the mechanics of the world’s magic system, answering some questions from previous novels, but shifting […]



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