Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

All Hail Dark Lord Davi

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

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In How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, we meet one Davi Morrigan; Ms. Skulltaker, if you’re nasty. Davi is stuck in a time loop in a land with no name, where she appears to have been teleported (maybe?) from America (probably). Davi has lived two hundred and eighty-some lives over a thousand years, trying (and failing) to defeat The Dark Lord and his army of wilders. And she is tired of it. Tired of getting killed in all the possible ways someone […]

A Weird Book and Murakami. So, Two Weird Books, I Guess

The Employees by Olga Ravn

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

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CBR18 BINGO: Craft for The Employees (unconventional/fragmented/experimental approach) and Summer for The City and Its Uncertain Walls The Employees by Olga Ravn So, I read this. Uh . . . And then I did some of this: It’s hard to know what to make of this. It’s confusing, although I do think I understood the general gist of it. To be honest, though, for a while I only knew what was happening because the book blurb tells you, and it felt like the book blurb made some of the connections […]

Doggie-powered magical alchemy

Roverpowered 2-3 by Drew Hayes

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Bingo 4: Middle OK, so I mentioned a rough week about 2 reviews ago. Here come the middle volumes of Rover Powered (2-3) such as the series currently is [5 out, 6th on the way]. So mid-series for Middle square. Wanda and Wumble go to alchemist training, and Wanda and Wumble go on their first group quest (team misfit!). Still cozy. Sill just what I wanted. And we even get a little bit from Wumble’s doggie perspective. Once again, the classic frames of the magic […]

Roverpower for the win

Roverpowered 1 by Drew Hayes

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Bingo 2: Refuge How to find solace the week the world loses Dolly Parton, Tim  Curry, Peter Cullen, and I’m getting into a challenging time at work, life outside work is over-busy, I’m tired, etc.? Drew Hayes novellas, obviously. I’ve been a fan of this author for years, knew he had this series Roverpowered, but had never really bothered to look into it further. It’s labeled as cozy fantasy and YA; it deserves those labels, but was also perfect refuge from the real world, at […]

not my favorite visit to the world of the white rat, but that’s a bit splitting hairs

Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher

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CBR Bingo “left” because the Dervish (Dervish? he sometimes is The Dervish and sometimes just Dervish, it’s hard to tell) has been left behind, without his mercenary party, and will keep being so given the whole immortal being hanging out with human meat Having not re-read Swordheart nor Clocktaur Wars Which is to say, unfortunately this book didn’t quite do it for me, at least not as much as the much-belatedly-read Swordheart did. We meet the second of three (?) enchanted swords in this, the second go-around in […]

What’s so bad about expressing enthusiasm?

The Point! by Nasser Hussain

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The Point! by Nasser Hussain due early September 2026;  mostly “read” via an online reader copy. (My rating is an average of my feelings on the book, so actually it is a 2.5) After writing a draft of this review I read it again via a phyical finished copy. Didn’t change my mind, yet I just got a bigger giggle out of it. Also I read the publisher review for it and found the first line interesting. Which, I am glad I did not read […]



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