Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


“There is no consent under capitalism.”

Docile by K.M. Szpara

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I liked this! But it didn’t go where I was expecting it to and I had to think about it a bunch before I rated and reviewed it, which I think is ultimately in the book’s favor. If it was easily digestible, I don’t think it would have been worth much of anything. Docile has been touted as a “science fiction parable”, and I think that’s an apt description. Certain things are purposely heightened (the wealth disparity between classes) and taken to their extremes, while […]

Re-read review of the first two books, and also more people still need to read this series so I can have someone to talk about it with!!

Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1) by Ada Palmer

Seven Surrenders (Terra Ignota, #2) by Ada Palmer

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This is a re-read review for the first two books in this series, which were originally written as one volume, and then split in two before publication. After reading them back to back for the first time, I can definitely say they work much better together as one story than they did the first time I read them, almost a year apart from each other. The arc of the story—the rising tension, climax, resolution—is much more clear and satisfying when they are read together. My […]

“It’s not what the Masquerade does to you that you should you fear . . . It’s what the Masquerade convinces you to do to yourself.”

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1) by Seth Dickinson

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The Traitor Baru Cormorant is probably the strongest (fictional) condemnation of colonialism that I’ve ever read. (And there have been some contenders.) I’ve been putting off writing a review of this book (and rating it) for a month now, because I was having such a hard time trying to sum up its complexities, and what it did to me as I was reading it. Mainly, though, this is exactly the reason I love fantasy and science fiction, because it can take real-world concepts like anti-colonialism,  […]

“One of them says, ‘Why did they do it?’ And the other answers, ‘Because they could.’ That is the only answer there ever is.”

The Power by Naomi Alderman

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I will not let this book ruin my review streak. I finished it last week and have just been sitting on a final rating and review because I wasn’t sure what I thought of it when I finished it, and I’m still not really sure now, but I don’t think waiting any more will help. Maybe typing up my thoughts will help solidify some things. I’m a little behind the times with this one. It was a big deal a couple of years ago, but […]

“Beneath the modern political rhetoric and academic theories of history, I had an ancient hope that was indistinguishable from Spiritualism. If my edit took, maybe the good I’d done would outweigh the evil.”

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

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I started this book first thing on New Year’s Day, made it about thirty pages in, and then didn’t pick it up again until Sunday morning on the 5th. I don’t know if it was feeling too heavy or what, but I needed to be in the right headspace for it. (It was probably the men’s right’s activists that did it, followed closely by a disturbing murder.) Then I basically binge-read the whole book yesterday morning. To sum the book up badly (and I will […]

The New Era of Speculative Fiction

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

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I’ve sworn off reading trilogies/series for the past few years since I tend to either get totally obsessed or very bored. But after reading Jemisin’s short fiction collection last year, I knew I needed to read her novels. The Fifth Season did not disappoint, and I can’t wait to read the rest of The Broken Earth trilogy. The Fifth Season revolves around a world built on active volcanoes, which means there are often ‘seasons’ of cataclysmic disasters. These ‘seasons’ are documented and passed down to the surviving […]



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