Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


About MarkAbaddon

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Somehow I have turned into a real life Ross Geller, having now been married 3 times. Otherwise, just your normal Jewish geek living in MN. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: MarkAbaddon's Quick Questions interview.)

MarkAbaddon's Reviews:

Great Ending to the 1st Part of this series

The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson

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God, I love this book. Endings are difficult as concluding a story in a manner that makes sense and is true to the characters you have been on a journey with is akin to landing a rocket on the moon. Donaldson pulled the feat off with this novel. The sequences where Covenant is being pulled into the Land are incredibly strong. The first attempt fails, not because the Lords of the Land were insufficient, but because when they were attempting to summon Covenant he was […]

Illearth War – book 2 of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

The Illearth War by Stephen R Donaldson

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Donaldson really seems to find himself in this, the second book of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Covenant is still the weakest part of the book, along with the time spent in our world, but everything else is so vibrant. What I loved is how he took characters from the first book that were already interesting and provided even more background and context to them to make them fully 3 dimensional. Mhoram is a wonderful example of this. He played a key role in the […]

A challenging start to a wonderful series

Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R Donaldson

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I had something pop up in my Google feed that referenced the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a series that had a huge impact on me as a teenager, and decided to re-read the entire series (including the Last Chronicles, which I have never read), starting with the first book in the series Lord Foul’s Bane. The first book in a series is often the weakest, as it takes time to set up the characters, the motivation and to build the world. This is no exception. […]

Last Defender of Camelot – one of Zelazny’s best

Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny

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After finishing a book I really hated, I needed to cleanse my palate, so to speak. The song Guinevere from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young came on and I realized it had been a while since I had re-read The Last Defender of Camelot. It does not disappoint. Is the style a bit dated? Sure. Are there some problematic passages in “Damnation Alley”? Without question, especially the Nazi ones and the handling of female characters in that story (one reason why this received 4 stars […]

Edge Dancer – it fell off a cliff

Edge Dancer by Brandon Sanderson

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My son got me started on the Stormlight Archives series from Brandon Sanderson and I fell in love with the story. They were complex, filled with interesting characters and a world that was richly defined. None of that is present in this book. Edge Dancer takes places after book 2 of the Stormlight Archives and focuses solely on one character that appeared in a brief aside in book 2. One of the strengths of the previous books was the multitude of characters, all of whom […]

Gangsters vs. Nazis – some interesting philosophical questions

Gangsters vs. Nazis by Michael Benson

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Full disclosure right from the start, I am a practicing Jew. So when my friend lent me this book, Gangsters vs. Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America, I knew I had to read it. Many may not realize this, but the Nazi movement was quite strong in the United States in the 1930s, especially within the German American community. One of the first surprises this book had for me was who gave the initial impetus behind the Jewish mobsters attacking the Nazis: […]



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