Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Kaiju fun and a great standalone from Scalzi

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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The Kaiju Preservation Society is a fun romp and a refreshing reset of Scalzi, for me.  His most recent works, “The Interdependency Saga” (a trilogy), left me feeling ‘meh’.  My review for the second book had me questioning whether I was cooling on Scalzi.  I still have yet to read the third.  When Scalzi announced this book, I was intrigued by the name and that it would be a standalone novel.  The Kaiju Preservation Society was preordered, and I’m grateful I did because it provided much […]

This is a Scalzi book, end of message

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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The Kaiju Preservation Society is intended to be 100% escapist, lightweight fun for the reader, and it certainly succeeds at that. I read the whole thing on my first plane flight since 2020, and it went down easy. The protagonist, Jamie Gray, is working as a food delivery driver in the early months of the pandemic when he gets recruited by an old friend to staff an “animal rights organization.” Given the title of the book you may guess approximately what comes next. It turns […]

“It’s like the foreign legion for nerds” I said, and laughed.

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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The Kaiju Preservation Society is very definitely a John Scalzi book. In his Afterword, which is worth reading, he describes it as a pop song. It came to him almost fully formed after he finally abandoned a book he describes as “a brooding symphony.” It’s frothy, entertaining and goes down smoothly while pointing out significant cultural issues. The good guys win and the bad guy satisfyingly gets what’s coming to him. I really loved that Scalzi starts this book firmly in our world, in our […]

A satisfying end to a great sci-fi trilogy

The Last Colony by John Scalzi

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Reviewing books in the middle of a series is always tricky because, by definition, spoilers are inherent. The fact that the the cover of this book says it’s a sequel to Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades already gives away certain information about the plot, let alone the back cover summary. All that aside, I will try to just give the bare bones of this plot along with this statement of the trilogy – it’s a fun, entertaining, and satisfying series. Now, to The […]

The End (for now).

The End of All Things (Old Man's War #6) by John Scalzi

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The End of All Things by John Scalzi wraps up several threads from the later books, while still leaving plenty of room for more entries in the series. This series tells one long story and should not be read out of order as there is no way to discuss the plot without getting into spoilers. If you have not read this series, starting with Old Man’s War, I highly recommend it. The first three books especially are outstanding. The most recent entry in the Old […]

Scalzi is always fun

Old Man's War by John Scalzi

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I’ve read more of Scalzi’s blog than his books and he’s just a fun writer. I read Red Shirts (and reviewed it for something like CBR11) and enjoyed it despite my utter lack of Star Trek knowledge so when a friend gifted me this for Christmas, I knew I was in for a good time. And maybe reading only electronic and audiobooks was part of my book exhaustion – getting to actually curl up on the couch with this one made it all fun again. Scalzi […]



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