Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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All this gore and good for her friendship just warmed my lil heart. (The cats helped.)

Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir, translated by Mary Robinette Kowal

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Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. I was sitting here thinking about how I should rate this, and I just really, really enjoyed myself, so I’m rounding this 4.5 star book up to five. Perhaps it is because there are two cats in here and one of them is a black one, and perhaps it is because of the ending, but regardless, I’m doing it, and I have no regrets. I liked the first […]

Liked the vibes, lacking in execution

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

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I picked up Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Spare Man up for no other reason than it was on sale and I liked the cover. It’s got this sort of retro-futuristic vibe that spoke to me (and essentially said “read me”). Tesla Crane is a famous heiress, inventor, and survivor of a corporate science disaster. She and her new spouse, Shal—a retired detective, are honeymooning on an interplanetary cruise liner from the Moon to Mars, when they chance upon a murder-in-progress. Shal becomes the prime suspect […]

Murder on an interplanetary cruise

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

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What: A murder mystery in space!  Lovebirds Tesla Crane and Shal Steward are celebrating their honeymoon on an interplanetary cruise ship.  Tesla’s notoriety has them traveling incognito and all is going well until Shal finds a woman who has been stabbed in the corridor.  When the woman dies shortly thereafter, he is accused of murder.  Tesla and Shal work to solve the murder, clear his name, and try to have a honeymoon! Who:  Tesla Crane is a ridiculously rich heiress and retired roboticist.  Living with […]

Brandon Sanderson (1); Mary Robinette Kowal (1)

The Original by Brandon Sanderson; Mary Robinette Kowal

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A novella co-written by Sanderson and Kowal, and with every co-written book like this, especially when I know both authors’ work to a certain degree, I spend a lot of time thinking about who must have written what. It’s not like a lot of Brandon Sanderson works, but it’s not quite what I know from Kowal. The novella is called “The Original” because we find ourselves in a future in which people can opt-in or out of certain technologies, including a cloning technology. Our narrator […]

An alternate history of the space program? Sign me up!

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

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It’s 1952, and a meteorite has just impacted in the Chesapeake Bay, instantly obliterating much of the east coast, including Washington, DC (and all the important stuff therein). Enter Elma York, a former WASP pilot and current computer for the space program. Elma is a math whiz, and shortly works out that the cataclysm is actually an extinction-level event. As go the dinosaurs, so are about to go the people. Humanity’s response to the impending disaster is to look towards the stars: if Earth will […]

Don’t toss your baby brother around on the moon

Molly on the Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

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When Molly moves to the Moon, she is going to live in such a small home that she can only bring one toy with her, her special soft toy lamb. But that does not stop our Molly on the Moon from having fun. She has some tin cans for having tea, an old cover for a cape and her imagination. However, one day that special toy goes missing only to be found in the clutches of Molly’s baby brother, Luke, (who since the gravity is […]



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