Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Hyperion – a modern classic

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

by Leave a Comment

Some books make you think and force you to challenge long held concepts. Some books affect you emotionally and can force you to weep during social situations where it may be inappropriate (reading on the bus, for example). Only a true classic can achieve both of those objectives and Simmons’ Hyperion certainly qualifies. This is a book that has won many awards and been hailed as a classic for over two decades and I am now realizing how influential it is when I watch shows […]

I will live, thought Saul Laski.

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons

by Leave a Comment

This is a behemoth of a horror novel by Dan Simmons, enjoying a little renaissance right now as the creator of The Terror and he’s a bit of a genre-jumping writer working in horror, science fiction, historical fiction (usually with a twist), and mystery. This novel starts in a concentration camp during WWII when we meet Saul Lasky, a Polish Jew, confronting his greatest terror, a Nazi commandant her refers to as The Oberst. We then jump shockingly and jarringly into the first person narration of […]

If Uncle Stevie’s name is on it, odds are I’m going to read it.

Flight or Fright by Stephen King, Bev Vincent

by 1 Comment

CBR11bingo #TheCollection Its no secret that I am not a huge fan of flying. I understand that it is the safest way to travel. But I usually choose to drive if I can. I like to be able to choose my own route, to leave when I want to leave, to stop when I want to stop. I like to be in control of my journey. I think the lack of that control in an airplane is part of what makes me uneasy. Oh, and […]

It’s been a long time since I was this disappointed in a book

The Abominable by Dan Simmons

by Leave a Comment

This review contains spoilers, so if you want to save The Abominable for yourself, you’re not going to want to read what follows. . . . . Not too long ago, I read and loved The Terror which was a delicious mix of history and fiction, spiced up with a little supernatural to make a truly compelling book set in a place I love reading about. I thought that The Abominable would do for climbing Everest what The Terror did for Artic exploration. On this […]

The implacable horror of isolation

by 1 Comment

There are books that speak to you. Books that reach down into the core of your inner being to play the delicate chords of your heart strings. Books that stay with you, becoming a passenger for life, indelibly connecting you to a particular place and time, like some kind of existential anchor of permanence in a sea of change. Moby Dick is one such book, for me. That book haunts me. It’s the girl I had a crush on in high school but was too afraid […]

And the ending resembles a fart

by 4 Comments

Hyperion is a very, very good book. The sequel might have been equally good if Dan Simmons would have not whiffed the ending. It so lacks in imagination that it made me angry. But let start at the top. Disappointments all around We left our band of intrepid pilgrims before they stepped down into the Valley of the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. They expected to meet the Shrike and die, except for one who – according to legend – would be offered a […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo