Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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40-something psychologist living with a husband, preschooler, and 2 cats. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Tracy's Quick Questions interview.)

Tracy's Reviews:

What Is Reality?

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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This was so good! It’s set in the past and the future and jumps around in time. It follows seemingly disparate threads and characters who are tied together by their experiencing an odd event in which there is a flash of darkness and the sound of violin music. A character named Gaspery shows up and talks to each of the people who have experienced this event. There is time travel and conversations about the simulation hypothesis. There are meta elements, like a character who wrote […]

“There Is Never Only One, Of Anyone”

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

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Cat’s Eye is a story about friendship, family, memory, and, especially, trauma. It follows the life of Elaine from childhood through about age 50. Like The Blind Assassin, also by Margaret Atwood, this novel alternates between past and present and is primarily set in the past. Most of the novel occurs when Elaine is about age 8-10. Elaine and her parents and older brother had a nomadic lifestyle during Elaine’s early childhood. Her father is an entomologist who travels around looking at bugs. When Elaine […]

The Fellowship Diverges and Reconverges

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

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Spoilers ahead, I guess, for those who aren’t familiar with how all of this ends. Part 1 (or Book III as it’s called in the book, because each of the 3 novels is divided into 2 books) of The Two Towers begins by following Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas as they try to track Merry and Pippin, who have been taken by Orcs. Sadly, Boromir died in the Orc battle, though not without putting up a strong fight. We discover that Gandalf lives. We meet the […]

More Murderbotting

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

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In Artificial Condition, we meet back up with Murderbot not too long after it left Dr. Mensah’s group. Its  goal is to find out what happened to it about 35,000 hours ago when it murdered several humans in what it was told was a failure of its programming, but most of its memory of the event was wiped and it wants more information. To do that it boards an empty research transport that’s headed in the direction it wants to go. The transport vessel ends […]

Even Better the 3rd Time Around

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

by 1 Comment

What a difference time can make when re-reading books! The first time I read The Fellowship of the Ring, I was an undergrad and felt that about the first 100 pages was a slog. The second time (I don’t recall when that was), I was prepared for the slog and knew I’d enjoy the rest of the novel, minus what I felt was a rather pointless section with Tom Bombadil. But this time was different. It’s been several years since I last read it, and […]

Finally Joining the Murderbot Party

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls by Jane Lindskold

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[CW for underage sex work in the 2nd book review] I finally decided to get All Systems Red from the library and have the next two on hold. I enjoyed it and think it pretty much lived up to the hype. Murderbot is a SecUnit on an uninhabited planet. It’s assigned to a group of scientists who are exploring the planet, but it doesn’t particularly enjoy its job. It hacked its governor module and spends as much time as it can streaming various entertainment media, […]



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