Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


“For a being as sophisticated as you are, it is baffling how little understanding you have of the composition of your own mind.”

Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5) by Martha Wells

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It has been almost three years since I last ventured into the land of Murderbot (January 2019) and while I had to wait like everyone else for Network Effect to publish, I also put it off a little while, over a year in fact. I blame Pandemic brain. Because the minute I picked this one up, I was back with Murderbot and it felt like almost no time at all since I last visited this part of fictional space. Murderbot is still working out this […]

CBR Diversions – Literary Couples That Make You Swoon

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With Valentine’s Day swiftly approaching, romance is in the air. To complement our featured romance book reviews, this week’s CBR Diversion celebrates our favorite literary couples. Who makes you swoon? I know many of you are historical romance fans who love a reformed rake who meets his match. Daphne and Simon have become quite popular in the zeitgeist after the Netflix adaption of Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I premiered. Personally, I’m a sucker for the slow burn courtship in urban fantasy series. In the […]

Everything I wanted and more.

Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5) by Martha Wells

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I loved this book so much, and that of course means I am at a loss to describe it. I also read it almost three months ago, and am only now attempting to write this review. This means BULLET POINTS. But first, I do want to say that I was very pleased with the first outing of Murderbot in novel form, as opposed to novella. I enjoyed spending a longer page count with Murderbot, whose character arc continues to develop in a pleasing fashion. I […]

First Impressions About Half Right This Time

Network Effect by Martha Wells

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I don’t often pre-order, but the Murderbot series is one of the few that I will do that for.  I am however realizing that this often means I have to wait a few days after the release to actually get the book; this was true even before pandemic close/slow-downs. This meant that I was getting a little impatient for Network Effect to show up. When the novel showed up, I got into it right away, and I think this might have been a bit of […]

(I know, I’m paranoid, but that’s how I’ve avoided being rendered for spare parts all this time.)

Network Effect by Martha Wells

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I could bang on about the discomfort of humans in late stage capitalist societies being treated as replaceable commodities as a reason that many of us identify with Murderbot, but you live here with me, so you know. Murderbot struggles to balance self-determination with blending in to fucked up society. After freeing them self from their governor module, they have had to behave as if they are under corporate control. They still have to act within a system that would sell them for parts if […]



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