Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Violence Will Be Televised

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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What I’ve learned from dystopian/speculative fiction books, including this one, is that the revolution may not be televised, but the human rights abuses, the cruelty, the inhumanity, the degradation, and the state-sponsored violence will be streamed to the masses. On its face, Chain-Gang All-Stars is about “Links” of one prison chain-gang versus Links from other chain-gangs from other prisons. Prisoners who “voluntarily” enter the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program legally murder each other, in packed arenas and on pay-for-view, for the enjoyment of a […]

The Stone Sky: “Different choices have always been possible.”

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

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The Stone Sky is the third and last installment in the Broken Earth Trilogy. This book is split between Essun and Nassun in the current day and Hoa in the past, which gives us context for how we got to where we are. We know that Essun and Nassun are on a collision course of sorts – they have the same general goal in mind, but with vastly different outcomes. Regardless, this Season and the Seasons in general cannot continue if humans are to survive. […]

The Obelisk Gate: Things get worse before they get better (I hope)

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

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Possible spoilers for The Fifth Season – Proceed with awareness. The Obelisk Gate is the second book in the Broken Earth Trilogy. In this installment, we follow two main stories – Essun and Nassun after each has arrived at a new, but separate, comm and the years that follow. Nassun is Essun’s daughter. Nassun had been taken by her father, Jija, after he murdered her little brother, Uche. We heard of them in the first book, but we officially meet them as they travel south […]

The Fifth Season: Funny how oppression is never the answer that the oppressors hope it is.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

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A good friend gave me this book a few years ago as a very strong recommendation for the series. Intending to read it right away, I immediately purchased the rest of the trilogy. Then they sat on my shelf for a while. After reading Amina Al-Sirafi, I wanted to dig into Shannon Chakraborty’s trilogy. So, off I skipped to the local bookshop only to find that they had 1 and 3 in stock, but #2 would take a few weeks to arrive. Rather than be […]

The Right Read at the Right Time, almost

The Black God's Drums by P. Djeli Clark

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Bingo Free Space Yes, I know Bingo technically was supposed to end two days ago, but since this is the extra free space I never ended up using, I’m still going to finish that off. I’ve been struggling to find a novella that I wanted to assign to an intro to lit class this coming spring (for reference, I’m at a regional state school) because I didn’t want to re-use anything too recent and I wanted to avoid something easily findable on the internet (either […]

Finishing the Black Stars series

These Alien Skies by C. T. Rwizi

We Travel the Spaceways by Victor LaValle

2043...(A Merman I Should Turn to Be) by Nisi Shawl

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Getting back on my reviews with Cannonball Read 14 Bingo! I liked all three of the remaining stories from the Black Stars anthology. I highly recommend you check them out on audiobook. Bingo Square: Star “These Alien Skies” was my favorite story from this round. Two human space explorers are sent through a wormhole on a mission to find habitable worlds. Before we can really get to know Msizi and Tariro, an accidental explosion (or was it) sends their ship crash landing on a planet […]



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