The Musical Director’s Handbook by Stuart Morley is a very specific style of book to read for Cannonball Read 8. I work as a music director for educational theater programs throughout the year and have started to feel like my teaching style has flatlined. I’m dedicating the beginning of the year to reading various books on music directing, vocal training, directing, music, and theater to try and improve my skills. This book is the most directly connected to the kind of work I do and […]
On Myth and Mayhem (A Robert #CBR6 Review)
Call Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey Chuck Palahniuk’s sci-fi epidemic kind-of but not really zombie novel about folklore and the creation of mythical figures. No, really. That’s the best line I can come up with to explain what, exactly, Rant is supposed to be. People are interviewed about Buster “Rant” Casey, a ne’re-do-well country boy who packs up his things at 18 (including millions in stolen gold coins) and brings a small town epidemic to the big city. Or, it’s the novel about […]
Dream a Little Dream (A Robert CBR6 Review)
Succubus Dreams is the third book in Richelle Mead’s Georgina Kincaid series. Georgina Kincaid is an immortal succubus who chooses to live a rather mundane life as the manager of a bookstore in Seattle. She’s dating her favorite modern author but cannot even dream of taking their relationship to a more intimate level. Even a kiss that lingers too long can take years off of Seth’s life. Out of nowhere, the energy stash Georgina gets from her conquests is disappearing by morning, leaving an impossible […]
Larry Stu and the Deadly Space War (A Robert CBR6 Review)
In an unspecified future, humanity has colonized the universe. One tech company holds the key to all of the transportation and only allows American citizens (winners of the last massive global conflict) passage to the greater universe on their 75th birthdays. These men and women sign up for a two to 10 year term as soldiers in the Colonial Defense Force, where they will somehow receive their youth and health back just for enlisting. It’s far more complicated than John Perry or any of his […]
Superheroes Need Grammar and Punctuation, Too (A Robert CBR6 Review)
What happens when an amazing story is torn apart by the author in the name of style over substance? Lavie Tidhar self-sabotages his latest novel, The Violent Century, just like that. Essentially, Tidhar is exploring an alternate reality where an unnamed catastrophic event caused hundreds of people around the world to transform into superhumans. Fogg and Oblivion, two British agents mostly used for information gathering rather than combat, control fog and dissipate matter, respectively. They are reporting their exploits in every major interntational war from […]
That Looks Nothing Like Nosferatu, Mr. Hill (A Robert CBR6 Review)
In NOS4A2, Joe Hill takes his remarkable eye for detail and applies it to a wide and expansive universe full of rich, memorable characters. The general throughline is Victoria McQueen and the discovery of inscapes. As a child, Victoria (or Brat, as her father calls her) finds out that if she rides her bike fast enough, she can make a demolished bridge appear that leads her to whatever she looking for. A fight with her parents leads her straight into trouble: a serial child abductor […]