Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Cairo, 1912, with magic. Sign me up.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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CBR 14 BINGO: Rec’d. MsWas recommended this one to me, and I will be recommending it to others. I also saw this recommended on NPR’s list of best sci-fi and fantasy books of the last decade. In 1912 Cairo, collector of antiquities, lover of the exotic, and all around British-colonial caricature Lord Worthington meets with his Brotherhood of al-Jahiz, a group whose noble purpose is to “recover the most sacred wisdom of the ancients, to create a greater tomorrow.” Worthington’s group has taken to collecting […]

Have I moved on emotionally from Gail Carriger?

Prudence (The Custard Protocol, #1) by Gail Carriger

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This was a perfectly fine and entertaining book that I for some reason had a hard time picking up and making myself finish, and I feel almost no pull to continue and finish the series. This is such a huge turnaround for what my feelings were about her first series, The Parasol Protectorate, which featured the main character of this book’s mother. I was enchanted and delighted by those books. Our main character here is Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama, and I’m not even going to […]

An AU of Steampunk Egypt, a magical whodunnit, and a great cast of characters. What more could you want?

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

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BINGO – REC’D by the wonderful narfna, CoffeeShopReader, ElCicco, Emmalita, and witcherwill. Their reviews are all linked above. I encourage you to read all of these great reviews as well. Fatma el-Sha’arawi is an agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities in an alternate history of Egypt in the 1910s. She is called in to investigate the brutal murders of a cult of people who worship al-Jahiz, the man who brought magic and the djinn into the world. Soon enough, a person claiming […]

An orphan boy and a rich girl try and save a city

City of Secrets by Victoria Ying

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Steampunk and almost magic (see robot that is sentient but needs help to fly) comes into play in the graphic novel, City of Secrets by Victoria Ying. This wild adventure of two young teens, Ever and Hannah, who must save their city recalls such things as Avatar the Last Airbender, Wizard of Oz, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Transformers, and pretty much any action-adventure story you know. The fantasy and realism combine to make a relatable, mystery, adventurous tale. Every page is filled with mischief, […]

“The three of them sat there – a Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”

A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn, #3) by P. Djèlí Clark

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Another book in this world, please! I continue to have a really good time with these audiobooks. I loved Suehyla El-Attar’s narration—even though she mispronounces some words, which would normally make me lose it, but that’s how much I love her voice—it’s so melodious it squashes my inner pedant. We’re back with Fatma el-Sha’arawi—agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities—in this first full novel (the first two were novellas) in this alternate-history, fantastical version of 1912 Cairo. Decades previously, a man named […]

The Rights of Women and Machines

The Haunting of Tramcar 015 by P. Djeli Clark

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Bingo 14: Machinery The Haunting of Tramcar 015 takes place in the same world as many of the author’s other works, a steampunk alternative history version of Cairo. The titular tramcar is a major part of the setting, the plot, and we even get some attention to the technical specs on how the tech is supposed to work; thus I would argue this novella/novelette qualifies for the technology focus square. The other reason for the label is that there’s a pretty detailed discussion of whether […]



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