Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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World War V: Part III

City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin

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This is the third and final novel in Cronin’s vampire trilogy (or as I like to think of it: Cronin’s vampire trilogy for people who actually aren’t too fussed on vampires but just enjoy a big epic story). The first novel, ‘The Passage’, introduced us to the vampire plague and then jumped forward 100 years as the last vestiges of humanity desperately try to hold on to their grip on the world. The second novel, ‘The Twelve’, showed how the best and worst of humanity […]

World War V: Part II

The Twelve by Justin Cronin

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The first book in this series, The Passage (my previous review), has forced me to do something I haven’t done in a long time: commit to a trilogy. A proper, lengthy, complex trilogy. I can’t remember the last time a series got its hooks into me so well. Quite a few of my cannonball reviews over the years have covered off on the first of a series. Gideon the Ninth, The Hatching, The Mummy Bloggers… None of these compelled me to continue. But Cronin’s epic vampire epidemic series […]

Dracula sucks…but the book doesn’t!

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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Dracula sucks but the book doesn’t. I go through phases of reading classics or otherwise tackling books with reputations of being difficult. Sometimes it’s easy to see why books are classics – they’re timeless and engrossing. A Tale of Two Cities is that way for me. So is Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. Other times the classics feel like archaeological work. The reader is excavating and extrapolating. Dracula felt like work to me, but the reader can definitely appreciate the book’s influence on future work. In particular, […]

Rolling with my homies

How to Vex a Vampire by Alice Winters

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  How to Vex a Vampire by Alice Winters reads like a cross between a script for Will & Grace and an early Laurell K. Hamilton novel, with a side of True Blood thrown in for good measure. Honestly, I can’t decide if I love it or hate it. Maybe a bit of both. Finnigan is an enormous flirt who is apparently a wee little man blessed with the capability to make just about anyone like him. He’s also a human homicide cop who has […]

Fun with Fred and Friends

Undeading Bells by Drew Hayes

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The “yay for Drew Hayes” streak continues. Undeading Bells is book 6 in the Fred series and a lot of the fun continues. The main challenge comes in the form of the alluded to wedding of the title, between Krystal and Fred. Of course there are several obstacles to overcome before getting to the altar. There are basically 3 things the House of Fred and Fred have to work through: first, wedding planning and then pulling off the actual ceremony, Fred further working on his […]

If you’re patient it’s not a bad read.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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Dracula as a phenomenon has pretty much taken on a life of its own to the point where I thought I knew all about it.I mean, Dracula is Dracula right?! Turns out I don’t! Dracula isn’t at all what I expected. It is told through a collection of diary entries, letters, notes and telegrams following various people through the novel. The story opens with Jonathan Harker traveling from London to the estate of Dracula in Transylvania. It’s all very spooky and mysterious, Dracula doesn’t eat, […]



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