Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“But the soul finds its own home if it ever has a home at all.”

Home by Marilynne Robinson

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Glory Boughton has returned to the small town of Gilead to take care of her dying father, the Reverend John Boughton. As the youngest of 8 children, she has spent her whole life trying to escape her role as the “baby” of the family and build a life outside of her childhood home. But as a failed engagement coincides with her father’s illness, Glory finds herself back in Gilead, wondering if it can ever truly be a home. Glory’s brother, Jack, is also back in […]

A most dangerous game

Under The Dome by Stephen King

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The thing about chess is, all the action happens on the board. There’s nowhere to hide. No extra $100 bill of Monopoly money stashed under the table. Every piece is in plain sight, every move accounted for. You might not always understand the consequences in the moment—but the game is visible. Transparent. Brutal. That same dynamic sits at the heart of Under the Dome. Then the dome falls, and the game begins. In Chester’s Mill, the players are already in place. Big Jim Rennie—second selectman, […]

“No other bosses but mine and my opponents’ can have your soul jerked out of your body and sent to the deepest fiery pits to suffer for eternity. Unless you work for Walmart.”

The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

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Not a big fan of this book. It was written like a mashup of the Johnny Dollar radio show (which is where I think Tad Williams got the idea to name the main character “Bobby Dollar”) and the Kolchak tv series. Very Sam Spade, hardboiled detective, old film noir, complete with gangsters, dames, booze, shoot-outs, and double crosses; heck, it even has a golden stand-in for the Maltese Falcon. The big change is that instead of detectives, cops, and gangsters, you have angels and demons, […]

This is why you shouldn’t touch chain emails with a ten-foot pole.

The Devil's Advisor by Brad Abdul

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This book bills itself as “Horror Fiction” and “for fans of Good Omens“; and I think they were incredibly far off the mark on both counts. Other than it being set mostly in Hell I have no idea how it could be considered “Horror”, and the writing is in no way anywhere close to being even one-tenth as funny or well-written as Good Omens. Brian (the main character) is unlikable, or as unlikable as someone who has all the personality and character development cardboard can […]

“Have you ever thought what a God would be like who actually ordained and executed the cruelty that is in [the biblical Book of Revelation]? A holocaust of mankind. Yet so many of these Bible-men accept the idea without a second thought.”

Revelation by C.J. Sansom

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This was probably the weirdest (and creepiest) book in the series so far. The motivation behind the murders is unfortunately still around today, and I enjoyed the Tudor take on the movie Seven (though having never seen the movie, I am just guessing at that comparison). I also appreciated how well-researched the book is, and how realistically all the characters are written; though Shardlake and his “crush on a woman who is going to kick him in the teeth” per book is starting to get […]

The Butcher’s Masquerade

The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman

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Dinniman has done it again. The fifth Carl book continues to escalate the stakes, the action, and the emotion. Carl continues his active opposition to the Borant Corporation, which gets stricter with its rules even as Carl gets more open with his resistance. On the seventh floor of the dungeon, additional players are added: hunters, outsiders to the dungeon who pay for the opportunity to hunt the crawlers for sport. Carl takes that personally, and goes on in no uncertain terms, a killing spree. There […]



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