Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Nero Wolfe but make it Japanese

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

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When a book’s premise is basically “freaky murders happen in a Japan-like country dealing with a Kaiju problem, and the murders need to be solved by an uber-intelligent shut-in and her magically altered assistant”, you’re going to pique my interest. And this book delivered its premise in all the best ways. In the world of Daretana, there are walls built to keep the Kaiju from invading, where there blood can work strange magical changes and contagions are rampant. In one of the elite mansions, a […]

“It is always best when discussing serious matters to do so around a teapot.”

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters: A Novel by Gordon Dahlquist

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It begins with a letter of rejection from Miss Celestial “Celeste” Temple’s fiancé, Roger Bascombe, delivered on her maid’s silver tray. But her quest for answers (surely nobody dumps someone by message!) takes her to the forbidding Harschmort Manor, where she finds acts of licentiousness, violence, and hedonism. But there she will also find two allies: Cardinal Chang, a scarred assassin in red, brutal but with the soul of a poet. And Captain-Surgeon Abelard Svenson, at once fumbling and heroic. Both of whom, like her, […]

AI is nothing new. Check out this major weirdness.

The Singularity by Dino Buzzati

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This is a quirky little book, sci-fi in its way, written by the Italian author Buzzati in 1960.   The plot is an odd one, these days, but due to my background, I know where he’s coming from. Professor Ismani is summoned by the Department of Defense to accept, along with his wife Elisa, a top secret two year assignment in the Swiss Alps.  They are given no information other than it is not a military assignment, but agree to it anyway.  It is a secretive […]

You’ll never like the way I break the laws you make.

Last Chance to Save the World by Beth Revis

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Hi! I’m going to need you all to go read this series so that I can get more books! I need a fully radicalized (corrupted? No, he can’t be corrupted, he must be radicalized) Rian. I need a Strom Fedor meltdown. I need more of Ada stealing things right under everyone’s noses. Maybe Strom Fedor can also die in a cheese explosion. I just need more stories in the Chaotic Orbits series. To clarify, no Last Chance to Save the World does not end on […]

“Hatred is the sincerest form of flattery.”

If We Were Villains: A Novel by M.L. Rio

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“If We Were Villains” tells the story of Oliver Marks, finishing his ten-year sentence in prison for murder, met at the gate by Joseph Colborne, the detective on the case. Never believing Oliver was guilty, Colburne wants to know what actually happened all those years ago, back when Oliver was a lower-income student on scholarship at the Dellecher Classical Conservatory, an exclusive and cliquish art school. In on an acting scholarship, Oliver joined the acting set and their obsession with all things Shakespeare, where he […]

Coastal Florida Gothic? Say What Now?

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

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This is the story of three generations of Vietnamese-American mothers.  The first, Minh, was a canny businesswoman who escaped from Vietnam shortly after the fall of Saigon, with her devoted husband, daughter, and son, and a significant amount of gold sewn into her children’s clothing.  (She had owned a very lucrative jewelry business – good choice.)  Upon making their way to Florida, they purchased Banyan House, a Gothic manor house complete with the aforementioned massive tree out front. It was here her daughter, Huong, grew […]



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