Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“I’m done, I’m so done. I would rather fight a CombatBot than spend another hour on this fucking torus.”

Platform Decay: Murderbot Diaries Book 8 by Martha Wells

by Leave a Comment

Never have I wanted so much for someone to give an old lady a gun. One of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve read my way through the newer Murderbot releases is that while there are some overreaching plot threads, the best thing about the series is watching SecUnit slowly improving how it interacts with others as it keeps on being thrown into new situations with new people. Note that I am reluctant to use the term social skills here; I would still not call […]

“Emotion check: Having someone else support your bad decisions feels kind of good”

Platform Decay: Murderbot Diaries Book 8 by Martha Wells

by 3 Comments

This latest Murderbot installment is short (150 pages) but full of the snark and excitement one has come to expect from the series. It is missing the usual cast of characters (including my favorite ART) but it introduces some new ones and of course focuses on everyone’s favorite SecUnit. The action of Platform Decay occurs on a torus, that is, a space station ring surrounding a decaying planet. The torus is man-made and contains a variety of biomes, mining and farming zones, habitation areas and […]

“I didn’t need any help getting angry, I was great at that on my own.”

Platform Decay by Martha Wells

by 2 Comments

Monthly Keyword 26: Decay Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026. Murderbot (who has installed a mental health module now, and keeps doing Emotion checks on itself) is on a rescue mission on a large artificial planet controlled mostly by Barish-Estranza. What starts out as needing to find and escort three people from the hostile territory becomes a lot more complicated when Murderbot is forced to agree to locate […]

The Stone Sky: “Different choices have always been possible.”

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

by Leave a Comment

The Stone Sky is the third and last installment in the Broken Earth Trilogy. This book is split between Essun and Nassun in the current day and Hoa in the past, which gives us context for how we got to where we are. We know that Essun and Nassun are on a collision course of sorts – they have the same general goal in mind, but with vastly different outcomes. Regardless, this Season and the Seasons in general cannot continue if humans are to survive. […]

H.G. Wells is the villain for boring me to death

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

by Leave a Comment

Sometimes the idea of a story is a thousand times better than the actual story, as is the case with H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man. I look at that cover and think, “This is going to be one badass book–a fun, light read that will nevertheless leave me pondering the nature of loneliness and isolation.” (Okay, I didn’t get all of that from the cover.) With fewer than 200 pages, this book turned out to be an unexpected slog and I’m still not sure what […]

The Obelisk Gate: Things get worse before they get better (I hope)

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

by Leave a Comment

Possible spoilers for The Fifth Season – Proceed with awareness. The Obelisk Gate is the second book in the Broken Earth Trilogy. In this installment, we follow two main stories – Essun and Nassun after each has arrived at a new, but separate, comm and the years that follow. Nassun is Essun’s daughter. Nassun had been taken by her father, Jija, after he murdered her little brother, Uche. We heard of them in the first book, but we officially meet them as they travel south […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo