Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Who doesn’t like a sci-fi romp?

Head On by John Scalzi

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Recently on twitter, John Scalzi shared a one-star review of one of his books he found. In the review, the writer was upset that Scalzi wrote easily readable sci-fi “romps”. Like me, Scalzi had a hard time finding why writing something that could be described as a romp would be bad. Romps are usually fun, right? Anyway, all of this is to say that Scalzi’s second foray into the world he established in Lock-in is fun, slick and dare I say another romp. Head On, […]

I loved it, even with my surface knowledge of Star Trek

Redshirts by John Scalzi

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Okay, so my full knowledge of Star Trek can be summed up thusly: Picard face-palms, that one dude sits in chairs like he’s hurdling, and redshirts are cannon fodder. And honestly? That’s all I needed to know to enjoy the hell out of Redshirts. Those with an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek (which I’m willing to bet is more than a few of you) will probably fall head over heels in love. The title may pretty quickly clue you in – Redshirts takes place in a world […]

Just as good as the first, maybe better?

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I was not disappointed by this sequel. P.S. writing this on my phone. I don’t actually have much to say about the book. I enjoyed it a lot, and I was worried that I would have forgotten everything that happened in the last book, and I sort of had, but Scalzi makes it easy for you to catch up. Cardenia is still emperox, Kiva is still a profane little firecracker, Marse is traveling around giving lectures about the flow collapse, and the effing Nohamapetans are […]

Fade to blackout

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What better way to go out on CBR bingo than on the “this is the end” square for the last of the Old Man’s War series entitled The End of All Things? Poetic. This wraps up the war between the CDF and Conclave (with special guest Equilibrium) in Star Wars fashion – with politics! Ok, im being unduly harsh, Scalzi does what he’s done this whole series to great effect – taking an interesting idea from his last book and expanding on it – particularly […]

Oh the humanity! Too much humanity!

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In one of my Old Man’s War reviews I mentioned that Scalzi’s strong suit wasn’t in crafting disparate personality types; his best characters are all (presumably, but I’m confident on the logic) stand ins for John Scalzi, which is fine because I like them all. This book has more than a dozen characters we share a POV with.  It’s a lot, and it doesn’t play to the author’s strengths.  I had a tough time separating characters for just this reason, and it somewhat undermines Scalzi’s […]

I’m not sure I’d do better, and I used to be a teen girl

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The more John Scalzi I read, the less convinced I am that he can write characters who aren’t John Scalzi.  Mind, that’s not entirely a criticism as I thoroughly enjoy John Scalzi, and so I like all his characters who are very clearly him as well. Same reason I like Bill Murray; you don’t buy a ticket to a Bill Murray movie for the same reason you see a Meryl Streep movie. Disappearing into a role is not the same as embodying a character so […]



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