Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Everything I’ve done since losing you has been about getting back to you.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

by 1 Comment

CBR18 Bingo: Maps – Kite and Joe follow and escape from the war by attacking and fleeing different harbours all over Europe. He put his hand out and Kite shook it. Joe had the alien thought that people here must never have touched each other otherwise. There was no kiss, no hug, nothing. They were all oysters sealed in their stiff manners. ― Natasha Pulley, The Kingdoms I tried to let you go, before. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d forget so quickly. ― Natasha […]

When someone is that calm in a crisis, either they don’t know what’s happening, or you don’t.

The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley

by Leave a Comment

Suffering doesn’t make people good or noble. A little bit gives them perspective. A lot turns them cruel, and too much – you get a murder or a marvel, and neither of those are really people any more. ― Natasha Pulley, The Hymn to Dionysus His duty was hurting him, and this is the medicine, and the only reason you think that’s unreasonable is that your duty has hurt you much more, there never was medicine for you, and you don’t see why other people […]

There was joy for having arrived, and sorrow for having left, and no way to even pretend this was home.

The Mars House by Natasha Pulley

by Leave a Comment

It’s called the illusory truth effect. If you hear something often enough, for long enough, you’ll believe it. Even if you originally knew that the information was false. ― Natasha Pulley, The Mars House It made January angry too, when people declared that giving someone poor some basic human consideration was the same as being Stalin. It was the kind of argument deployed by people who were saving up for their own private golf course. ― Natasha Pulley, The Mars House CBR17 Bingo: Migrant We […]

Mystery, Political Intrigue, Science Fiction, and Quiet Romance

The Mars House by Natasha Pulley

by 4 Comments

January Stirling is a ballet dancer in a future England, forced to flee Earth as a climate refugee when his city – and seemingly much of Britain – becomes submerged in a massive flood. Climate refugees who manage to get off-planet are sent to Tharsis, the only city on a terraformed Mars, where their strength – unaffected by the weaker gravity and thinner atmosphere of Mars – causes them to be a major threat to the naturalized Martians. Earthstrongers, as they are called, are required […]

Grab bag!

Long Live the Pumpkin Queen by Shea Ernshaw

The Half-Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

by Leave a Comment

Long Live the Pumpkin Queen – Shea Ernshaw Shortly after her wedding to Jack Skellington, Sally is overwhelmed by her new duties as Pumpkin Queen. Seeking to find solace she retreats to the grove of doors where she stumbles across a broken door hidden in the bramble. She opens it and sees nothing, but neglects to close the door inadvertently releasing the Sandman. Soon all of Halloween Town is asleep except for Sally. Unable to wake her friends, Sally looks for help in the other […]

I don’t know how a novel with a mechanical octopus could go so wrong

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

by 1 Comment

CBR 14 BINGO: Time, because there is a watch on the cover, and a watch in the title, and it deals with the way a person’s possible futures can shift through time Note: I’ve included spoilers to explain what it was that I didn’t like about this novel. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street has all the ingredients required to create something I should love: interesting characters, a non-linear interpretation of time, steampunk-esque mechanics, a beautiful cover, a dash of feminism, and an anthropomorphic clockwork octopus. […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo