Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


These (Slow) Burning Stars

These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs

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These Burning Stars, by Bethany Jacobs, is a revenge-driven, bloody, action-heavy space opera. It’s full of political intrigue, social commentary, and gun fights. And I thought it was excellent. It was, however, slow to start for me. In fact, I originally started it several months ago and got a little stuck in the first chapter due to all the unfamiliar terminology. The author doesn’t include a glossary, so it was a bit hard for me to keep track at first. That feeling went away after […]

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 […]

Ragtag Crew of Humans Saving the World

Unstoppable #1 Victories Greater Than Death  by Charlie Jane Anders

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There are a lot of good things that are included in Unstoppable #1 Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders. However, not only is this a book that while you can stop after book one you need the series to fill in blanks, there are events that I just could not like. I know that this is a controversial statement due to the subjects included. We deal a lot with gender (in fact it is such an important part of things, when someone introduces themselves […]

Starts off with a Firefly like crew and quickly becomes something entirely different

Honor’s Knight by Rachel Bach

Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach

Heaven’s Queen by Rachel Bach

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I would say that I enjoyed the series overall but I also think the first one was the most fun. There were a few lines in the first book that I thought would lead in a certain direction and I either completely misread them, or the author decided she already had enough to resolve without adding that into the equation so dropped that potential plot point. The second book adds quite a bit of complexity to the alliances of the world. With a main character […]

“If I die, you can always make another me.”

Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1) by Edward Ashton

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What a way to start the year—existential crises and smart-assery. Mickey7, aka Mickey Barnes, is our guy. He’s an Expendable on a mission to establish a beachhead colony on a far-flung world. Expendables are just that—they are the people sent on suicide missions, given dangerous tasks, experimented upon medically to develop vaccines and treatments for whatever exciting new ailments await colonists on their new planet. He’s the guy who will die for you, only to have a new copy of himself ready to go 24-hours […]

Murderbot is not OK but the reason why is [redacted]

System Collapse by Martha Wells

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CBR16 Bingo: Rage (The Murderbot Diaries are all the rage all over the bookish internet, in addition, there’s a lot of rage-inducing behaviour from the evil corporation in the book) Spoiler warning! This is book 7 in the series, and absolutely not the place to start reading. This book will not make as much sense if it’s your first encounter with Murderbot. You should have read at least All Systems Red, Artificial Condition and the previous novel, Network Effect to have the requisite backstory for […]



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