Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“People – a group comprised of every sapient species, organic or otherwise – were chaos, but chaos was good. Chaos was the only sensible conclusion.”

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

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Monthly Keyword Challenge 26: Ground Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book that came out more than 4 years ago Defeating the Goblin TBR 26: The Gizmo Book (A Sci-fi or Dystopian book) Reading Rainbow – Indigo cover The planet of Gora doesn’t have much to recommend itself to anyone, except as a stopover for travellers to other, more interesting parts of space. Travellers can rest, refuel, eat, restock their supplies and update any permits that might be required. It’s like an interstellar truck stop between […]

Monk and Robot #1 and #2

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

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After reading several sobering, spooky, or downright heart-wrenching post-apocalypse stories, these two short novellas were a breath of fresh air. Do you want a story about a planet where humans avoided the apocalypse, barely, and have figured out how to give everyone what they need? Do you want a charming robot (who also has everything he needs) and is meeting humans for the first time in over 200 years? Do you want friendship and adventure with no anxiety? I ready these back to back and […]

Steeped in Meaning

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

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I had the pleasure of reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, which turned out to be the perfect end-of-your-day read: light but meaningful, engaging without being taxing. The story follows Dex, a monk in a futuristic society that has rebalanced itself after the AI singularity. In this imagined future, robots gain consciousness and – rather than triggering a bloody, Terminator-style war – humans and robots amicably agree to go their separate ways. Decades pass without contact as robot territory becomes the Wild, […]

“Dex drew one shaky breath, then walked away, each step sure and steady.

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers

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I read an article recently about the current state of science fiction where the thesis was basically that the field doesn’t have a clear vision of the future anymore and isn’t providing the service that it used to to the culture at large. I have qualms about this point of view because I’m a pretty optimistic person and the amount of books being published under the umbrella of science fiction make it hard for me to make a coherent argument that covers all of them […]

There and Back Again: A Spaceship’s Tale

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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I read Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy last year (two short novellas comprising the Monk & Robot series) and loved them, so her earlier Wayfarers series, starting with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet has been on my to-be-read list for a while. We join the crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that’s on a job to travel to a far-off destination and essentially drop an anchor point for a wormhole to make future travel […]

“Most sapients confuse working hard with being miserable.”

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

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I was so confident that I would like Becky Chambers’ Wayferer series that when I snagged the first book the library, I grabbed the entire trilogy. Why waste time?? I was so excited to start book two and continue exploring the galaxy with Ashby, Rosemary and the rest of the crew of the Wayfarer. So it was a very rude awakening to discover that this second book has absolutely nothing to do with them. At first I was rather disappointed, but once I shook that […]



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