Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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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 […]

“We have always been more rational than you people.”

Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin

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Bingo: Strange Worlds; Passport: Dystopian science fiction I read this brilliant, darkly funny novelette after hearing about it on an episode of Our Opinions are Correct, the science fiction podcast hosted by Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz, that analysed the impact of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfish individualism on the tech industry.  In Rand’s own words: “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as […]

When Reality and Fiction Overlap in NYC

The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin

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Bingo 17: North America This might be a little obvious but since The World We Make could actually fit several categories, I’m using for North America because it takes place largely in New York City, and most of the main characters are living avatars of the boroughs of NYC, as well as an avatar for the city overall. The gist of the novel remains similar from the prequel (this is part 2 of a duology): the avatars of Manhattan (Manny), Queens (Padmini), Brooklyn (Brooklyn), Bronx […]

I’m so curious what Jemisin will do next.

The World We Make (Great Cities, #2) by N.K. Jemisin

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This was a good ending to this series. It’s still not my favorite thing from N.K. Jemisin, but I very much enjoyed reading it (and it’s a fast read). I’m also glad that we didn’t get the original story or ending that Jemisin had planned (she talks about it in her author’s note); it sounded much bleaker and the series was originally going to be a trilogy instead of a duology. We’ve done the bleak N.K. Jemisin trilogy before. I appreciate that this ended on […]



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