Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“No other bosses but mine and my opponents’ can have your soul jerked out of your body and sent to the deepest fiery pits to suffer for eternity. Unless you work for Walmart.”

The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

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Not a big fan of this book. It was written like a mashup of the Johnny Dollar radio show (which is where I think Tad Williams got the idea to name the main character “Bobby Dollar”) and the Kolchak tv series. Very Sam Spade, hardboiled detective, old film noir, complete with gangsters, dames, booze, shoot-outs, and double crosses; heck, it even has a golden stand-in for the Maltese Falcon. The big change is that instead of detectives, cops, and gangsters, you have angels and demons, […]

“…it is a painful thing to tell unhappy truths, even from behind a shield of honesty.”

Brothers of the Wind by Tad Williams

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Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is probably my all-time favorite fantasy series and I’ve wanted to read Tad Williams’ more recent novels returning to Osten Ard, but I’ve been a little daunted by having to read through the series again. Brothers of the Wind felt like a good first step in that direction, as it’s a stand-alone prequel set 1,000 years before the novels. I did pay full price for this at the bookstore due to finishing Dune earlier than I thought and foolishly not bringing […]

A Great First (Long) Book in a (Long) Series

City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams

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After carrying this book around from apartment to apartment for thirteen years, I finally made it beyond the first hundred pages and have finished the first book in the quartet. At this pace, I should be done in about 39 more years, so there’s hope! I think this really is a case of a book needing to be read at the right time. With a long train commute and a sudden urge to read Tad Williams, the stars aligned. City of Golden Shadow is set in […]

A collection of minor disappointments.

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The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams (3 stars) I read this close enough to 20 years ago for me not to want to think too long on it. I was a teenager, and deeply enraptured by fantasy – particularly the weighty tomes that couldn’t quite fit in my back pocket. The kind of books that resonated with a heavy thud when dropped onto a table. The kind of books that probably exacerbated my natural awkwardness around girls. I devoured this book, and its sequels. So, […]

GRRM Light

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I stumbled upon this book after reading an interview with George RR Martin. Apparently Tad Williams was one of GRRM’s favorite writers, and Williams’ “Memory, Sorrow and Thorn” trilogy was one of GRRM’s biggest inspirations for writing his own giant epic…that I’d like to point out we’re still all waiting for him to finish. *side eye* I loved all of GRMM’s books and thought it would be neat to read the original material, and it did not disappoint. Like GRRM, Williams’ book encompasses a vast […]

An epic fantasy anthology, cherry-picked from other sources.

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This was a pretty great anthology. I was probably destined to like it because it’s pretty hard for me to dislike most kinds of fantasy. This is also different than some anthologies because the editor didn’t commission pieces for this book, but collected them from other already published sources. I sampled a lot of authors I’ve been meaning to try for some time, although I’m annoyed that some of the stories occur halfway through a series or something like that. If you like Epic fantasy […]



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