Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Christ,” said Peter. “Hell is a campus.”

Katabasis: A Novel by R. F Kuang

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Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld Alice Law has but one goal: to become one of the greatest in the field of Magick; to make all the sacrifices (her pride, her health, her love life, her self-respect, and most of all her sanity) worthwhile. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. (And one of the worst humans; but what does a vicious personality and a tendency to drive others to […]

Where Lovecraft Meets Spycraft

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross

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I’m still making my way through the Laundry Files books, in hope that I’ll be reviewing the final one before the year is out. In my review of the Atrocity Archives I did mention that while the premise was good, the book was quite episodic and disjointed. To expand on that a little: re-reading it, it seems clear that the author was exploring two distinct ideas — mixing the public sector with eldritch horrors, and mixing espionage with eldritch horrors. Some of the later books […]

But We Dream Different Dreams

The Last Boleyn by Karen Harper

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Though it is Anne Boleyn who became the second queen of Henry VIII, her sister Mary had her own entanglements with royalty which in many ways paved the way for the rise of the Boleyns. Philippa Gregory retreads this same ground some two decades later, but my understanding is that The Last Boleyn is a more restrained retelling of this already dramatic story. I thought that Harper did an excellent job of fleshing out all the many historical figures which people this book, including members of both […]

H.G. Wells is the villain for boring me to death

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

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Sometimes the idea of a story is a thousand times better than the actual story, as is the case with H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man. I look at that cover and think, “This is going to be one badass book–a fun, light read that will nevertheless leave me pondering the nature of loneliness and isolation.” (Okay, I didn’t get all of that from the cover.) With fewer than 200 pages, this book turned out to be an unexpected slog and I’m still not sure what […]

A story chain starts with hot chocolate

Hot Chocolate on Thursday by Michiko Aoyama (Translated by E. Madison Shimoda)

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Having read ‘What you are looking for is in the library’ by the same author at the end of last year when I spotted this in a little independent book shop in the Lake District I immediately picked it up. This is the first book by Michiko Aoyama and is quite similar structurally to her other work. There is a central thing or place that connects a number of short stories that daisy chain together in a narrative. Here we have a Tokyo coffee shop […]

I didn’t even mention the gratuitous nudity

The Science of Ghosts by Lilah Sturges and El Garing

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The Science of Ghosts by Lilah Sturges and El Garing stars Doctor Joy Ravenna – a forensic parapsychologist, trans lesbian, and grantee. She also solves murder(s) for reasons that have to do with all of the above and funding may be the most important one. You can’t do paranormal psychology without a grant. Joy used to work with the police as a psychologist. She was married to a pretty detective and they were probably happy enough. Then she transitioned, her presumably heterosexual wife left her, […]



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