I’ve been reading a lot of dystopian fiction these days. I think the sense of impending doom surrounding academia, plus my graduation with no immediate job prospects in sight has me retreating to dire fiction to be comforted. Or maybe that’s what I’m telling myself? Either way, I’ve got a lot of reading in my stack, and Edan Lepucki’s California has been on a lot of 2014 lists. I thought I would give it a shot. Cal and Frida are a married couple who have […]
Souls cross ages, like clouds cross skies
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is an old book, fairly known, I would say, and even put onto the big screen. By now the premise of this book should be familiar to most; six interwoven tales of one person reincarnate spanning the years between 1850’s and a dystopian future. Each tale varies distinctly in style and tone from old journals to crappy mystery novels to sci-fi uprisings. I feel wearied by the mere recounting of six stories in one. Mainly because I don’t feel like […]
Hey I’ve never seen the sun come up in the west
Full disclosures: this book was written by my dad’s writers’ group, my dad is a fellow Cannonballer (new this year!), and I make no promises not to be biased as hell, ’cause Dad is awesome. Each story has to do with something we’ve all encountered: badness while traveling. At the end of each story, the author tells his/her own worst travel story, which I thought was a neat touch. There are regular road trip troubles, and adventures with ghosts and witches and other dimensions, and […]
Per aspera ad astra.
Through hardships to the stars. Christ. I just finished Golden Son a few minutes ago. And I am exhausted. The sequel to the amazing Red Rising, Golden Son picks up the story a few years after the events of the first book. And then the action LITERALLY never stops. Each time something completely nuts would happen, and a chapter would end, I’d say to myself, “well. there’s no way he can top that.” And then I’d read the next chapter. AND MY GOD, PIERCE BROWN WOULD TOP […]
How to take over Earth in 5 easy waves.
The slew of post-apocalyptic media out there makes me realize how screwed I’d be in the event of an actual apocalypse. I have no survival skills and I’m not familiar with any weaponry. Anyway, I picked up The 5th Wave based on reviews that said it didn’t suck, in fact was quite good, and it had a badass teenage heroine à la Katniss. Were these reviews right? Well, yes and no. Aliens have finally come to Earth, but instead of bringing gifts, they set off a deadly series of events. Here’s a wave-by-wave program to take out the human race: The 1st Wave: Shut down […]
NOmentum
Where does this story go? Nowhere, really. There are a handful of decent, interestingly written passages, but they do not really add up to much of a story, and certainly not the level of dread or suspense I was expecting based on jacket reviews from authors I generally like. A nameless Biologist is part of Expedition 12 into Area X, which has a border apparently encroaching on the “normal” part of the world. The story relates her point of view as the small, unnamed, all-women […]
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