Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Read this before the movie comes out – because you’ll want to consume both!

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

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If you liked Andy Weir’s first novel, The Martian, then Project Hail Mary won’t disappoint as another witty, funny, creative sci-fi adventure. Suspend your belief for this one, as moments of sudden clarity, synchronicity, and serendipity abound. But in order to save the world, everything has to fall perfectly into place, and I was here for it! In some ways, Weir’s protagonist, Ryland Grace, is an everyman archetype – an unassuming middle school teacher with no real drama or intrigue in his life. But in […]

In case you were wondering, there aren’t really any werewolves in this book.

The Werewolf Principle by Clifford D. Simak

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Quite an interesting little book. And charming, in the way that a lot of 1960s/70s sci-fi is charming—I love the way that people thought the future might be (in this case, a world government, smart houses that take care of humans and that can fly), and also in this case, Simak’s imagination doesn’t really gel with science as we know it. But if you suspend your disbelief, you get a weird little book about a man found frozen in space who turns out to have […]

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

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When a scientist is murdered in the last outpost of humanity left in the world, the villagers must seek justice or all face death. I read Turton’s debut The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle several years ago, and while I enjoyed piecing together the mystery and the science fiction underpinnings of the story, I though the solution got too convoluted in the end. This book has a similar problem, but as the focus for much of the story is the science fiction setting and […]

Worm-Mandated Soulmates

Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon

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Georgie has been kidnapped by aliens – but when she and her fellow captives crash-land on an icy planet, they must ally with the strange locals to survive. I’ve been pretty covetous of this series since I saw the beautiful covers of the paperback rereleases – and luckily the stories have been very fun too! The author builds a cohesive culture and society throughout this very long series, with a wide variety of heroes, heroines, and tropes explored. Since I read this book, I have […]

Pike, This Ain’t Wuthering Heights

The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet by Melinda Taub

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Mary Bennet is famously the odd one out among her bright, vivacious sisters – an awkward show-off and a bore. But in this book, it’s what Mary’s doing off the page that deserves attention. This book is part-sequel, part-companion to the fabulous The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, which I read and greatly enjoyed last year. You haven’t got to read that book to enjoy this one – Mary and Lydia are after all not exactly close – but there’s definitely some things which […]

“I have just drawn my weapon and killed a Coke machine, sir.” CBRBINGO – Green (BINGO!)

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King

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According to many Constant Readers, this is Uncle Stevie’s worst book, but I don’t agree! It is extremely flawed, but I also found it very readable (it probably helped that Edward Herrmann narrates the audiobook, and he is a wonderful audiobook narrator). This is sci-fi horror. A woman named Bobbie, a writer of western novels, finds a buried object in the ground and becomes obsessed with unearthing it. Doing so changes her and the town she lives in forever, and in really really creepy ways. […]



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