Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

The Murderbot Diaries – the novellas and the short stories. Some were re-reads, some were new to me

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Matha Wells

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

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My original reviews and ratings for the first four novellas can be found here. CBR17 Bingo: Favourite (goes for the whole series, and the protagonist) All Systems Red Nowhere Book Bingo 25: First in a series   It’s been five years since I first read The Murderbot Diaries, and it was interesting to revisit the original novella. This was selected as the January selection for my real-life book club (with the option to read the other three if people had time). While a lot of the members really enjoyed […]

Creating seasons where none exist (Groundhog Day part II)

On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle

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CBR 17 BINGO: Green (see cover image) Translated by Barbara Haveland Back in April, I read the first installment of Solvej Balle’s seven-part series On the Calculation of Volume and was impressed by its poetic sublimity. I wondered how she could possibly extend the concept into six more novels. I enjoyed part II, but I’m still wondering where this is going. To recap, in part I, bookseller Tara Selter is experiencing “broken time.” She appears to be caught in a loop where she keeps experiencing […]

Let’s Not Ship Toxic Men

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

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Heavenly Tyrant, the sequel to Iron Widow, picks up immediately after the first book finishes, and the long ago Emperor Qin Zheng is awake now and won’t be dying of the plague he was certainly dying from. He is immediately accepted as the ruler of Huaxia, and has absolute power. Zetian marries him, and they implement what seems to have parallels to the rise of Communist China and Mao Zedong. He strips wealthy folks of their lands to redistribute and he imprisons and executes many […]

Best book of 1998?!

The Decision by K. A. Applegate

Megamorphs 2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs by K. A. Applegate

The Departure by K. A. Applegate

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It’s possible that the best book I’ve read all year is a thirty year old Animorphs book. This whole batch of books is a lot of fun, but book 19 is next level. Book 18, The Decision, is an Ax the Andalite book, and it’s quite good. I think I mention this in an earlier review, but one crazy sci-fi element of the Animorphs books comes to morphing animals that are smaller than oneself. If you, as a human, morph into a tiny cockroach (yes, […]

The Expanse keeps expanding!

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

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This is the fourth book in The Expanse series, and sees the focus both narrow back to our main crew while also expanding into genuinely new worlds. I have been making my way through both the books and the TV series at the same time, and am now at the point where my reading is how way beyond my TV progress, but it’s ok. In this series, focal character James Holden is a perennial optimist, with noble ideas about humanity and truth and morality. He’s […]

Possible Death By Lunar Cheese Volcano

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

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When the Moon Hits Your Eye is not really a straightforward story. The premise is basically “What if the moon actually turned to cheese, suddenly and unexplicably? How would people react?” Each chapter is a mini-episode of a couple of people trying to figure out what is going on, and what they think and how they feel about it.  These episodes range from a group of retirees in a diner, to a couple of young adults working at rival cheese shops, to NASA scientists, to […]



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