Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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Official book description: The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit. Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as necromantic skeletons. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as […]

When You Literally Get Sucked Into a Story

The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler

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The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler My rating: 4 of 5 stars “The Forbidden Library” is a quasi-steampunk, fantasy novel. Alice discovers that her world isn’t what it seems when she happens to overhear and see her father talking with a fairy. This leads to some circumstances that throws her world upside down. She ends up living with her “uncle” Geryon who has a library that she’s not allowed to visit unless she accompanied by Geryon. Of course she wants to discover the place for […]

The Cool Crowd

The Cool Bean by Jory John

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The Cool Bean is part of Jory John’s series that includes The Good Egg, The Bad Seed and The Good Egg Presents: The Great Eggscape! (coming in February 2020). The Cool Bean is just like the other stories in this group. There are more than a few puns about being “a cool bean” and bean puns in general. The story is simple: Our narrator used to hang out with a handful of beans in olden times (as long ago as last year), but this year […]

When West Meets East, Sharpshooters and Demons

Shadow Roads (Volume One) by Cullen Bunn

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Shadow Roads (Volume One) is one very large screwy ride! Cullen Bunn and Brain Hurrt make realism and science fiction collide. They bleed together to create a familiar but new world where Victorina England and the American old west are only a portal jump away from each other. There is magic, native tribes and demons. There are people who are not what they seem and people who are the comic relief. There is an Annie Oakley-like kid who also could pass herself off for Little […]

A new meaning to he’s got the Midas Touch

Midas Flesh Volume 1 by Ryan North

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I started Midas by Ryan North after finishing Pandora’s Legacy by Kara Leopard (review a few reviews before this). I was not paying attention to the Greek Myth theme that both graphic novels had (though to be honest, I should have as the titles are a large clue). Once I realized this, I thought maybe they would be good companion novels. They are not. Where as Pandora’s Legacy could go as young as 10-13 and adult, I would start with at least 13 and more […]

It is well known that eight colors make up white.

Eric by Terry Pratchett

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This is my second foray into Discworld, and where the first novel I read felt big in scope and purpose, this one feel decidedly small. For one, this novel is about half the length of the first in the series The Color of Magic, and for a second one, this one feels very much like we spend the whole of the novel in same room. It’s not quite true, but it’s something. Throughout the book, from the epigraph from Faust to the literally crossed word Faust (and replaced […]



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