Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A queer steampunk political intrigue fantasy epic…. with zombies

The Prince's Poisoned Vow by Hailey Turner

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I wasn’t exactly sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but it definitely wasn’t an queer steampunk political intrigue epic with zombies. It’s the first in a series, so there’s a lot of worldbuilding. Without revealing too much, the land of Maricol is poisoned, and it requires a lot of managing from keeping the poison from encroaching: the work of Wardens, like Soren, people who are tithed by each country and raised to withstand the poison. Why is the poison so bad? […]

“Sure, why not take your mortally wounded lover and shove her into an ancient machine of uncertain effectiveness? What could go wrong?”

Blood of the Chosen: Burningblade & Silvereye Book Two by Django Wexler

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Wexler continues writing excellent sci-fantasy.  I love the melding of energy swords and healing magics.  A highly, technically advanced civilization that has fallen.  Magic is held in the hands of a few, tech is tightly controlled and scrounged from remnants of the previous age.  Life is very different depending on where you live, within the Republic, in the splinter kingdoms, or outside on the fringes. Blood of the Chosen picks up immediately after the events of  Ashes of the Sun.  A potentially humanity ending calamity […]

If the formula works, might as well use it

Jujutsu Kaisen, vols. 0-12 by Gege Akutami

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I’ve been seeing comments about the anime for Jujustsu Kaisen is the best thing ever this year, so when I saw almost the first 12 books in the manga series at the library, I decided to try it out. As it turns out the whole thing is relatively formulaic (enough that missing volumes 3, 4, and 11 didn’t seem to matter a whole lot) but still has enough personality to be interesting. The basic gist is that Yuji Itadori who has just lost his grandfather […]

The King of the Nerds Falls Flat

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons by Michael Witwer

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Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons tries to be a history of gaming, both general and specific, a biography, and a business of pop culture (cons, trends, geekdoms, etc) review all at once; it does not succeed. On the biography side, the subject Gry Gygax is presented with little personality other than ‘tempermental’ and ‘creative genius’ and ‘somewhat difficult’. There’s also little narrative to build and follow, mostly scattered episodes. Part of the problem is that no one else […]

Found Family is Just My Favorite Trope, Forever

It's Called A Flush by Deniigiq

Flush: Chatlog by Deniigiq

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My brother is an OG-we-had-the-Darth-Vadar-Cases-for-our-action-figures Star Wars fan. One of the only things my brother says he will never forgive my mom for is falling asleep in the theater when she watched A New Hope for the first time: In her defense, she was 16, and leaving the house childless for the first time since my brother was born, so she was pretty tired. She remembers the words crawling up the screen, a ship, and that’s all folks. New moms everywhere can understand. I know […]

The Lost World by Arthur Conan

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

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As a huge fan of Doyle, and knowing the influence this book has had on fantasy, I saw an edition of The Lost World from a printing in the early 1970s at a used book store and immediately purchased it. Oy, what a mistake. I am aware that Holmes has been accused of being misogynistic and there are elements of racism within those books but man did Doyle let his id out of control in this novel. I literally hated every single one of these […]



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