Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Who doesn’t like a sci-fi romp?

Head On by John Scalzi

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Recently on twitter, John Scalzi shared a one-star review of one of his books he found. In the review, the writer was upset that Scalzi wrote easily readable sci-fi “romps”. Like me, Scalzi had a hard time finding why writing something that could be described as a romp would be bad. Romps are usually fun, right? Anyway, all of this is to say that Scalzi’s second foray into the world he established in Lock-in is fun, slick and dare I say another romp. Head On, […]

A is for Autonomous

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

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Technically, I started this book in 2018, but I did the bulk of it on the first of January, so I’m giving myself a pass and starting with it. A book with an “A” title is a good place to start. Autonomous is about a future where everything is patented, and people, as individual citizens, are treated like potential property and capital rather than individuals who possess innate rights. The impetus for this change in thinking and living comes from the contradiction that exists when […]

Get your red hot love-bot here

Robot in Love by T. L. McBeth

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Another Valentine’s Day book review with a few spoilers. Robot in Love looks like it might be a modern fairy tale. There is a Cinderella like robot on the cover and why not? However, it does turn into a story more about tolerance to love. The robot sees the loveliest creature for afar. As you go along, you learn they are shiny. The most lovely thing they have seen. And, of course, the robot is too shy to talk to her. The illustrations do show […]

Transformers meet Voltron

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Transformers meet Voltron in Mech Cadet Yu Volume one by Greg Pak, Takeshi Miyazawa and Triona Farrell. I would like to point out when I say Transformer and Voltron I do not mean the modern-day versions but the awesome 1980s versions I grew up on. The story itself is totally today, but still the creators are paying honor to the classics. The story is every few years giant robots from outer space come to bond with cadets from the Sky Corps Academy.  Sixty-years ago, the […]

“I hate caring about stuff. But apparently once you start, you can’t just stop.”

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Murderbot is on a mission. A mission of vengeance. He’s* determined to bring the corporation GrayCris as much pain as possible, and has a plan to do it. Except he keeps getting distracted by all these pesky humans who need helping all the time; dammit, that’s not his job anymore, and he doesn’t like them anyway! (He sort of likes them.) *I have once again reverted to male pronouns for this character. I give up and surrender to my brain. I honestly didn’t even know […]

The future is augmented

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I’m combining my reviews for Company Town and Autonomous for a couple of reasons. 1. Both stories happen in the future 2. Both stories take place in Canada 3. Both authors have won awards for their books 4. The authors have appeared together on panels to discuss their work, where they are often likely to discuss human/robot sex, for reasons which will become clear in this review. Writing about the future is a broad topic and goes by a lot of descriptors—science fiction, utopian/dystopian fiction, speculative fiction—there are many […]



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