This last year, like many Cannonballers, I read more books than I got a chance to review and so this final review of 2018, which will end up being my first review of 2019, is a sort of odds and ends. Here in no particular order are books that I read while in China, books I read while on vacation in Northern Wisconsin, and books I read during my fall and spring semesters that I just didn’t have time to write about at the time. […]
“I can wait for the galaxy outside to get a little kinder.” (CBR10Bingo)
Science Fiction is one of the genres that grew on me over time. I find myself drawn more to the space-based versions, books like the Red Rising trilogy, The Martian, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Sparrow, and Children of God have been favorites over the years. There’s something about the exploration and survival stories that are part of the genre that work for me. I became particularly interested in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet when I heard it described as a […]
Becky Chambers might be my new hero
Before I finished my last read, I started poking around in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, trying to pick my next read, when I noticed the page “A special note from Becky Chambers” all the way in the back. I assumed it would be an acknowledgement page or maybe a teaser for an upcoming book or even just a note to her fans, but instead, Chambers included a note to encourage aspiring writers not to give up. The timing […]
For the Runaways
The only thing I knew going into this book was that if you like firefly and wish there’d been more episodes of them just hanging around then this is the book for you. And holy fuck is that an accurate description. But like in the best sense, you guys. Rosemary Harper is on a deepod (what’s a deepod? Doesn’t matter) into space where Captain Ashby awaits here aboard the Wayfarer. He needs a new clerk and she needs to get away. Along for the ride […]
Yet another glowing review for this gem of a book.
I was going to give this four stars because I really enjoyed myself while reading it, but I didn’t get THAT FEELING, you know? But then I had this one thought afterwards that completely reshaped my perspective about the whole book and now I have to give it five stars. But first some context. This has been an absurdly well-reviewed book here at CBR (and everywhere else), and it pretty much came out of nowhere. It has been compared frequently to both Star Trek (because […]
Hey, look, we’re all different. Isn’t that swell?
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is the somewhat unwieldy title to an absolutely delightful story of a tightly-knit group of space-farers tasked with tunneling through space, setting up wormholes that allow for interplanetary travel. It’s set in the distant future (obviously), where humanity has made Earth uninhabitable and are scattered across the cosmos. They’ve joined a collective of alien races called the Galactic Commons. That’s pretty much it, in a nutshell. The broad elements here will be familiar to anyone who’s been […]