Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“The planet was beautiful. The planet was horrible. The planet was full of people, and they were beautiful and horrible, too.”

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

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A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, grabbed my attention and did not let go. It was immersive, inclusive, and filled with all sorts of sentient beings with whom I was delighted to spend my time. It was not a book that I would have picked up on my own, but now I find myself barreling head-first further into the series. I was so excited to learn that it was a series; reading is the only way that I comfortably spend any “down time” […]

Robo Boogey

Happiness for Humans by P.Z. Reizin

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Jen is a struggling writer (aren’t we all). She doesn’t have much direction in life (who does). To make things even worse, her smarmy lawyer boyfriend has not only decided that he doesn’t want to have kids with Jen, but that he doesn’t even want to be with Jen. She takes a writing assignment about a tech company, and later comes on full-time for the company for a year in order to become a conversation partner with an AI named Aiden (get it). The idea is […]

Aging down the line

Plum Rains by Andromeda Romano-Lax

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In the not-too-distant future , Japan is faced with an aging, ailing population and a declining birth rate. With few young people willing to care for the elderly, they allow migrant workers in, with the promise of citizenship vaguely dangled in front of them. The migrant workers have a series of ridiculous and near-draconian rules and regulations placed on them, needing to navigate language testing, paying off loans, and unfair labour conditions just to survive long enough to send money back to their families abroad. […]

“She was glad to have met someone who liked to read.” (Double Bingo)

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

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#CBR11 Bingo: Cannonballer Says (recommended by Carriejay, faintingviolet, emmalita, dAvid, tillie, badkittyuno and Narfna, among others) Official book description: Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow. Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people […]

Locked room murder mystery, in space!

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I stayed up entirely too late finishing this. It was really very hard for me to put down, and that alone earns it the privilege of being bumped up to four stars. I did have some quibbles with it, but in the end they were minor, and I was compelled by the book to finish (always a good sign). Six Wakes, to boil it down, is about six clones on a generation ship who wake up to find that they have all been murdered, and […]

Murderbot strikes again, is even more loveable.

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Murderbot <3. I feel like just making that one word and its accompanying symbol my entire review, but that would be doing a disservice to the book and also to anyone potentially reading this review who has not yet let Murderbot into their lives. Murderbot is life. Murderbot is love. Just kidding. If Murderbot saw me talking about Murderbot like this, Murderbot would be appalled. Murderbot is all about not dealing with feelings at all costs. Which is too bad, because as a newly free […]



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