Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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About G.D. Giant

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Tall person, avid reader and avid, but less successful, gardener. I read a lot of sci fi, fantasy and literary fiction with the occasional smattering of mysteries.

G.D. Giant's Reviews:

The Violence Will Be Televised

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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What I’ve learned from dystopian/speculative fiction books, including this one, is that the revolution may not be televised, but the human rights abuses, the cruelty, the inhumanity, the degradation, and the state-sponsored violence will be streamed to the masses. On its face, Chain-Gang All-Stars is about “Links” of one prison chain-gang versus Links from other chain-gangs from other prisons. Prisoners who “voluntarily” enter the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program legally murder each other, in packed arenas and on pay-for-view, for the enjoyment of a […]

Mists and Mystery

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

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Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson, is Book One of the Mistborn Original Trilogy. Although I read a good amount of fantasy, I have, for some reason, never read any Brandon Sanderson. But, since this year is the 20th anniversary of the original publication of Mistborn, I thought I’d give it a shot. And I’m glad I did. Mistborn is a very good book. The world-building is phenomenal, from the political system to the actual sad, gray, ash-covered lands. The magic system is new and interesting, and […]

Red for Murder

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

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When She Woke, by Hillary Jordan, is a work of speculative fiction, that I imagine feels far less speculative today than when it was published in 2011. The author doesn’t specify the year of our Lord in which this novel takes place, but it’s definitely in the future. Los Angeles has been nuked to filth. There are water wars in Northern Africa. There are “National Identity Cards” which allow the government to monitor and track citizenry. And there was a “superclap” pandemic which did nothing […]

The Problem With Compliance

The Memory Policy by Yoko Ogawa

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The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa is a quiet, spare, literary tale of dystopia. While I can’t say I enjoyed reading this book, I can say that I think it’s very good. I found the book hard to enjoy for a couple of reasons. One, because it was very strange concept. Our unnamed narrator and her unnamed friends and family live on an unnamed island where things disappear. But, they disappear from people’s memories first, and then the people of the island get rid of the […]

Pow, Right in the Feels

Heart the Lover by Lily King

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Heart the Lover is a new(ish) book from Lily King, published in October of last year. The narrator is a writer, nicknamed “Jordan,” after Gatsby’s Jordan, by two of her classmates. The book follows her relationship with the young men from college through their late-40s. It’s not a long book, only 249 pages, but it definitely packs a punch. I’m a big fan of author Lily King. I think she’s a phenomenal writer and I’ve loved everything I’ve read of hers. That being said, I […]

When Satire Isn’t

Severance by Ling Ma

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I wonder what it was like to read this book pre-COVID. Because I can tell you that reading it now, six years after COVID hit, it’s not as satirical as perhaps the author intended. In Severance, the deadly virus definitively originates in China and makes sort-of zombies (not the brain-eating kind) from the infected. Other than that difference, this book is spookily prescient. So much so that I had to keep re-checking the original publication date, but, yeah, Severance was first published in August of […]



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