Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

When my 10-year-old past-life boy and my 40-something-now-life like the same book

How to Take Care of Your Dinosaur by Jason Cockcroft

by Leave a Comment

I admit it. I was a 10-year-old-boy in some past life as I love a good fart or poop joke. And this book has a steaming pile of a good poop joke in it. And thankfully, the rest of How to Take Care of Your Dinosaur by Jason Cockcroft is fun as well. And (mostly) not as messy either. While we have seen this theme before done with unicorns, trains, monsters, and all sorts of creatures, the “taking care” of your pet dinosaur story is […]

Road Trip 101: Stay away from the Creepy Shadow Men

Are You Listening by Tillie Walden

by Leave a Comment

Are You Listening is an odd graphic novel for the 14 to adult crowd. The oddness can only be likened to as if it was the set up to a plot of a classic Twilight Zone episode (with a few modern elements: the two main charters are lesbians and there is a modern plot point).  There is much build up but then nothing happens until the end for traditional action. It is there we get the supernatural elements hitting and hitting hard! There are creepy […]

Consider my Pot, Boiled

A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark

by Leave a Comment

It started with John Constantine, grouchy creepy detective magician, solving petty punk mysteries and sassing demons.  I love a good pot boiler, but I like them with wizards, or gods, or most preferably ghosts.  My collection is an embarrassment of sassy magicians solving ghost crimes. An anonymous Twitter surfaced in my feed one day to recommend the short story A Dead Djinn in Cairo. Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities must investigate the potential suicide of powerful djinn […]

Probably one for hard-core fans only.

Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin

by 4 Comments

Before Game of Thrones there was the age of the Targaryens, the only family of Dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria. And so they came to Westeros to rule. But before they could be kings and queens Aegon the Conqueror had to destroy those who stood against him. With his legendary sisters and their dragons against them the lords of Westeros bent their knees. This history recounts his reign and on through Maegor the Cruel to the civil war known as the Dance of […]

Finally a break in a streak of not great

strange practice by vivian shaw

by 1 Comment

Yeah for finding a new fun series! It’s fairly light, not perfect but quite promising. The basic premise is that Dr. Greta Helsing (daughter of that Helsing; yes, the one you’re probably thinking of) is a doctor for things that go bump in the night, like ghouls, vampires, vampyres, mummies, etc. She’s friends with Edmund Ruthven (yes, that Lord Ruthven), and as a result of a bad thing going on in the monster community, gets together a group including Ruthven, Francis Varney (a vampyr which […]

Questions on the Nature of All Good Things and Ending

All Good Things by Emma Newman

by Leave a Comment

Why is Cathy suddenly a potentially powerful Sorcerer? Who/What/How is Beatrice? And what’s up with her rather pointless ending? Why is Lucy suddenly back with a big part in the story? There must have been a better way to give Lucy purpose or explaining her besides using the otherwise pointless Edwin, right? Why do we need to hear so much from William, and what’s up with his sudden need for total power? Was that scene with him and Amelia necessary? Why is there so little […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo