Stefan

World’s End served up enough excitement, mythological depth, and interesting characters to keep me reading to the end. I’m usually not a big reader of contemporary fantasy or dark fantasy, but I definitely look forward to reading the next book in the series, Darkest Hour.

Read the rest of the review here!

PS The FTC wants you to know that the publisher of this novel sent me a free review copy.  So there.

Next up: Well, I read a bunch of books since this one already - it took a while for this review to pop up because I wanted to read the entire trilogy.  The reviews of the next 2 books should pop up soon.  Right now I'm almost done with "Diving into the Wreck" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

… In Nightchild, James Barclay basically does everything he did in the first two books of the CHRONICLES OF THE RAVEN, but just a little bit better. The novel is more tightly written, the characters have by now acquired some depth, and the plot is less simplistic. While the hectic pace of the first two novels occasionally lent them a cartoon-like quality, Nightchild is more evenly paced, better crafted, and simply a more enjoyable read…

Read the entire review here!

Disclaimer: The FTC wants you to know that the publisher provided me with a free review copy. So there.

All the Windwracked Stars is the first book in the EDDA OF BURDENS trilogy by fantasy and SF author Elizabeth Bear. The novel is a very original blend of fantasy, science fiction, steampunk and mythology, and while it has some weaknesses, its originality sets it apart in a genre that’s all too often filled with cookie-cutter material.

Please check out the full review here!

…As a newcomer to the works of R.A. MacAvoy, I enjoyed In Between, mainly because of Ewen, who deserves a full novel, but also because of the subtle spirituality of the story. At about 100 pages, this is a quick, enjoyable read that hopefully will be the base for a full-length novel in the future.

Please read my full review on Fantasyliterature.com!

DISCLAIMER: The FTC wants you to know that the publisher of this book sent me a free review copy of this novella.  So there.

Next up:  I already finished Elizabeth Bear's "By the Mountain Bound" - review should appear on FanLit soon.  I also read "Makers by Cory Doctorow but haven't written anything about it yet.  After this I'm going to read Graham Joyce's newest, "How to Make Friends with Demons", and also do a quick re-read of "Ethan of Athos" for the upcoming discussion on Beyond Reality.

I haven't posted much lately, mainly because I've been busy re-reading some books, some for book discussions and some to refresh my memory before reading the sequel.  One of those is "Imager" by L.E. Modesitt Jr., and my updated review was just published on FantasyLiterature.com:

Excerpt:

Imager is a promising start to the IMAGER PORTFOLIO, recommended for fans of L. E. Modesitt Jr. as well as for people who aren't familiar with the author, because it's a solid example of the author's style and a great way to sample the work of one of fantasy's most prolific and talented writers.

Read the rest of the review here!

Right now I'm finishing up my review of "Imager's Challenge".  I've also started reading "Agent of Change" by Sharon Lee and Stuart Miller --- a fun read so far.

"Farmer in the Sky" is a Heinlein juvenile (today we'd call it Young Adult science fiction) about a plucky boy who joins the colonization effort on Ganymede to escape Earth's overcrowding, food rationing, and the memory of his recently deceased mother. 

I'm sure lots of boys who read this in the fifties and sixties got hooked on SF (and possibly signed up for the Boy Scouts).  For the present, I think this would be a good book to recommend to a young reader who's maybe not quite ready yet for something like Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars - think Ganymede instead of Mars, and boy scouts and pioneer-like farmers as opposed to a bunch of dysfunctional scientist.

I'm rating this book three stars, but I'm rating it the way I think its target audience would.  For someone with an adult's knowledge and taste, this book is probably too simplistic, but I think an early-to-mid teenage boy would lap this up.  It's a short and fast read with a bit of humor, some action, and just enough science to make it seem plausible to a young reader.  While some of the mannerisms and expressions sound extremely dated now (the book is almost 60 years old), it's still a fun read.  It has "wholesome" written all over it. 

The first thing that grips you in this book is its relentless pace.  It throws you right into the action and then basically doesn't slow down much until the very end.  The main story follows a group of high-end criminals (another reviewer compared it to Ocean's Eleven) who are in the process of planning a big job: overthrowing the Final Empire and its Lord Ruler.  The group consists of a number of interesting characters who, in the best David Eddings tradition, spend good chunks of the book bickering with each other.  Into this mix is thrown a poor orphan girl, from a much smaller and poorer group of criminals, who turns out to have amazing powers and so on and so forth.  It's not terribly original, but it's entertaining and well executed.

I truly enjoyed reading the first 500 or so pages of this 650 page novel.  The story is fun, never slows down, and the pages just keep turning themselves.  Another part of the fun is the inventive magic system (seems to be a trademark for this author) which slowly becomes more defined and sophisticated as the story progresses.  As with the author's other books, the magic system is actually relevant to the story, in the sense that it's not just an additional power for some of the characters, but instead an important part of the plot and the world-building.

Despite the fact that many of the characters don't have a lot of depth, and some of the plotting is very contrived and staged, I was completely ready to give this one 4 stars... until the ending of the story.  I won't go into detail so as not to spoil the read for others, but I was very disappointed.  Some of it was too predictable, some of it seemed inconsistent, and some of it just wasn't exciting. 

I loved this book up until the last 100 pages or so.  I completely see why this author is so successful: his work is as accessible as some of the big blockbuster names, but much more tightly written.  I just wish the ending hadn't been such a let-down, because I was ready to give this one four stars.  In my opinion, Elantris is still his best work, but I do plan to read the other 2 novels set in the Mistborn universe at some point.

"A Grey Moon Over China" is a solid and well-executed debut novel.  Main character and narrator Ed Torres is a soldier in the ongoing oil and energy wars of the early 21st century on Earth.  During an amazing military maneuver (which you have to read to believe), he accidentally gets access to a scientific secret that can solve all of the planet's energy problems, but rather than share it with the world, he uses it to fund and launch a space exploration and colonization effort.
The set-up and execution of the launch are nothing short of stunning.  From the initial arrival at the launch site through the eventual start of the mission, I simply couldn't put the book down.  Actually, one of the novel's biggest strengths is its relentless pace.  From the initial military maneuver until more than halfway through the story, the exciting developments and action just don't let up.  The writing is so dense it almost feels rushed, which results in an exciting read that occasionally could use some more development. 
Especially in terms of characterization, I felt a bit let down at times.  It takes a long time for several of the characters to become more than agents that drive the action along.  One explanation for this could be that the narrator, Ed Torres, is so focused on his mission that he doesn't always pay attention to the human beings around him.  He also describes some of the most tragic events with a painful, toneless clarity.  Unfortunately the result of this is that some of the characters take a long time to develop from cyphers or stereotypes to real people.
I had trouble deciding on a rating for this book.  On the one hand, it's a great page-turner filled with innovative ideas and memorable scenes.   On the other, I can't get over the fact that it felt a bit rushed and uneven.  As much as I am a fan of brevity, especially in this age of doorstop tomes, I would have preferred a novel that's a few hundred pages longer, taking the time to fill in some of the gaps.  Still, it's a very strong debut, and Thomas A. Day is an author to keep an eye on.

Next up:  I just started "Warbreaker" by Brandon Sanderson.  Intriguing so far, but it seems like the set-up for a video game plot.

I wasn't entirely thrilled with this not-quite-a-sequel to Barnes' great debut novel "The Somnambulist".  It's not that it's bad... I just expected more.  It's set in the same world as the first novel, but instead of Victorian era London (which lent "The Somnambulist" a certain amount of charm), the setting is much less exciting current day London.  Instead of a main character who is an illusionist and a detective, it has Henry Lamb - who is a filing clerk.  Instead of the mysterious, invulnerable somnambulist, the protagonist's companion is his slightly frumpy landlady.  It's almost as if Barnes purposely set out to make this novel less exciting than the first one - and the fact that the main character, in true Arthur Dent style, really doesn't know what's going on for a good part of the novel doesn't help either. 

Still, Barnes' prose has a lovely flow, and he is great at jolting the reader with a burst of darkness once in a while.  Thankfully there are several appearances by Hawker and Boon from the first novel (imagine Neil Gaiman's Croup and Vandemar in school boy uniforms).  The plot moves along steadily towards a conclusion that, in my opinion, was completely over the top and nearly knocked the book down to 2 star status... but in the end "The Domino Men" entertained me sufficiently to get three stars.  Despite some weaknesses in his first two books, I think Barnes is a very talented writer who will produce a real masterpiece before long.

"Imager" is the first book in a new fantasy series by the insanely prolific L. E. Modesitt Jr., whose works I usually enjoy very much --- and this one was no exception, despite the fact that it's so recognizably his work that it verges on the predictable.  Actually, I'm sure that some Modesitt fans could have predicted the early part of this novel's plot just by looking at the map:  hmmm... looks like a city with a bunch of artist studio's, and in the center there's something called "Imager's Isle"... so maybe we have yet another craftsman (see:The Magic of Recluce") who discovers he has some strange power and ends up in a magical training organization of some sort?  Bingo.
However, I'm being unfair.  Modesitt Jr. displays his usual care and love of detail in the worldbuilding - so much detail that this book will probably be too slow for some readers, but if you appreciate someone who takes the time to describe a fantasy world in such detail that it almost seems real, Modesitt's your guy.  As usual, extensive meditations on the ethics of the protagonist's various actions are included, showing (as always) various shades of gray.  As usual, the dialogue is often filled with subtlety and understated humor.  The magic system appears very simplistic at first but there are strong hints that more detail is hidden below the surface.  Also very promising: this first book, while by no means boring, covers only the early parts of the main character's career and a small part of the world.  In short, I'm more interested in reading book 2 of this series (when it comes out) than I was after the first book of Modesitt's last fantasy series, the Corean Chronicles (which I took a break from after book 3).  (Caveat:  I usually like his SF much, much more than his fantasy.)
So... I'd recommend this one to fans of the author as well as to newcomers who may want to check out his style.  It's a solid example of his style of writing, and a promising start to a new series.  But I'd still suggest some of his stand-alone SF before any of his fantasy (The Parafaith War, Archform: Beauty, Adiamante, The Ethos Effect and Flash are all great).  ***

Next up:  "Fractions" by Ken MacLeod.  I recently read a good short story by him in an anthology. ("The New Space Opera", maybe?)  "Fractions" contains the first 2 books of a 4 book series (the final 2 are supposed to be released in one cover this year).

I always hate to write about these venerable SF classics, because very frequently I end up being disappointed by them.  I know that I can't hold genre fiction from the 1950's up to the same standards as current-day genre fiction, but...  

Well, hold on.  Actually, I can and I am.  Maybe I just feel guilty about pointing out the various flaws, especially because back in the day, this was cutting-edge stuff.  Sure, it's filled with cardboard characters (almost all male of course) that either talk about science, fight off alien menaces, or do both simultaneously.  Sure, some of the "cutting edge" science is now verging on the ridiculous (early in the novel, one of the scientists dictates a report and then runs it over to the steganography department to have it transcribed).  Some of it is a bit unfortunate (naming the most commonly used weapons "vibrators" was just plain distracting).  But there are also a lot of ideas here that were really innovative and exciting at the time.

In the end, I try to read these novels with an open mind, trying to muster admiration for them by keeping their place in the canon in mind... while trying to ignore the distractions.

So.  This is an episodic novel --- it really feels like 4 separate novella's sharing the same characters.  The 4 stories are incredibly similar (even down to the length --- about 50 pages each).  The Space Beagle is basically a giant inter-galactic spaceship filled with a bunch of scientists from nearly every known discipline (and one new one --- more about this later).  They are on a voyage heading out of our galaxy and on the way to the galaxy next door.  Along the way, they encounter 4 different alien life forms (one per story) who all pose a threat to the expedition.  Some of these aliens are pretty nifty (the telepathic bird-people were very cool).  Others are more boring (the lay-their-eggs-inside-human-tummies variety). 

Invariably, the aliens are defeated by Elliot Grosvenor, the ship's only representative of Nexialism, a relatively new science branch that is initially described in very vague terms but in the end turns out to be something like a simultaneous insight in every other science branch, achieved by hypnotic machine-learning brain-programming (with tapes --- in the vein of CJ Cherryh's Union folks but less evil).  Grosvenor is initially ridiculed, shunned and/or ignored, but time and again turns out to be the ship's savior.

My favorite aspect of the novel was the sometimes ethically questionable methods Grosvenor uses to push through his will.  It adds a nice greyness to the black-and-white quality of the other characters (good scientist versus evil scientist politics).  Grosvenor does good things, but he sometimes accomplishes them by hypnotizing entire sections of the ship to make them do his bidding or by killing the last or only representative of an alien race.  

In this sense, the novel reminded me of George RR Martin's "Tuf Voyaging" --- about another loner who is posed with moral dilemmas.  (I just realize "Tuf Voyaging" is also an episodic novel.  Hm.)  However, none of the characters in this novel come anywhere close to the depth and charm Martin used to draw Haviland Tuf, one of my favorite SF characters of all time.

In the end, I would only recommend "The Voyage of the Space Beagle" to people who have an interest in the history of the genre and are willing to overlook some of the flaws common in older genre fiction.  ***

Next up:  the indefatigable L. E. Modesitt has started yet another fantasy series, and I'm going to give the first book, "Imager", a try.  I usually enjoy his SF much more than his fantasy, but despite being insanely prolific, he actually hasn't written much that I disliked (aside from the Spellsong books maybe).  Plus it's been about 6 months again, so definitely time for some Modesitt. 

Well, the good news is that this novel actually got a bit better than I thought at first, but it's still not the earth-shattering genre-defining debut that the nice publicity folks at Tor make it out to be.

In terms of world-building, it reminded me a bit of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.  Fantasy-world that once had advanced technology but now has reverted to standard medievaloid status, aside from some remnants of those high-tech times still being around and/or being re-discovered.  (I always thought that was the most interesting thing about WoT, and that flashback scene in one of the books where you go back to the high times of the Aes Sedai was fantastic, but I still gave up in book 8.)  In "Lamentation", a religious order acts as the keeper of the knowledge of those times, and in the first 5 pages or so, that order's central city gets completely obliterated by a magic spell that was originally designed by the order's rival, about 2000 years ago.  Oh, and the moon is terraformed, which gets mentioned in passing but really piqued my interest.

So far, so good.

The aspect of this novel I really didn't like is, frankly, the characterization.  To make another comparison, I felt like Scholes was going for Guy Gavriel Kay.  There's a hero, tragic and glamourous and strong and romantic, a soldier of soldiers, loved by all his men, blahdeeblah.  When GGK does this, you feel like you know that man.  You admire him.  You want to meet him and shake his hand.  You know?  He can make you care about his characters. 

With Scholes, it feels more like they're... templates.  He does everything right, and the characters say and do all the right things, but there's just no connection.  I just didn't feel it.  Not just with Rudolpho (the heroic soldier-king), but also with Neb-the-orphan-scholar) or Jin Li Tam, the nobleman's daughter (and consort of the cardboard-cut-out villain) who of course falls in love with Rudolpho.  They're all recognizable and definitely have some depth, but just not the level of depth I was hoping for.  This may be a case of overly high expectations (that's what you get for hyping this thing to pieces), but the end result is that I felt let down.  Not that this makes any sense whatsoever, but I kept wishing Scholes had handed his world and story over to Kay. 

So.  A good story, set in an interesting world, peopled with characters I didn't give a damn about.  It has a lot of potential, and I may actually read the next book (I believe there are 5 installments projected --- at least it's not another trilogy), but I just didn't feel satisfied after reading it.  Maybe I'm just becoming jaded (ha).  Anyway, I give it three stars.  Also, you know what?  Given that this is only his first novel, I think this guy could turn out something really good in the future.  There's definite talent there.

Next up: just picked up Orb's lovely reissue of A.E. Van Vogt's "The Voyage of the Space Beagle", which I've never read (I know, I know!).  

Well, I finally finished this 1260 page monstrosity, which is the 7th installment in a 10 book series.  Although it suffers from the same flaws all other books in this series suffer from, it's actually a pretty decent read.  I would just recommend doing what I did and treating every book in this series as 3 or 4 separate books --- in other words, take a break every 300-400 pages or so.  If not, it's just too much all at once --- at least for my taste.
I've been trying to formulate what exactly I like and dislike about this series.  It's maddening for me to simultaneously dislike a book and feel the urge to re-read the first books in the series. 

( Rant inside... )

Next up:  I just started "The January Dancer" by Michael Flynn.  So far, so good.

Sorry for the rant, everyone :)

EDIT:  Checking my own reviews, I now realize Karsa Orlong's story is told in book 4, not book 5.  I won't correct my mistake in the text above to illustrate how CONFUSING this series is :)

NOTE:  While I have tried to avoid spoilers in my original rant, the discussion in the notes is straying into details that constitute spoilers.  Don't read the notes unless you have read up to book 7 in the series, or (alternatively) if you have no interest in reading any of the books :)

Richard Oort, a police officer in Albuquerque, finds out that he is a paladin for the forces of rationality and science.  He is recruited in the fight against the forces of evil:  Cthulhu-esque beings from another dimension who feed on humanity's fears and pain to break through to our world and use religion to gain power by spreading hatred and fear.
While I enjoy a good rant against organized religion as much as the next atheist, I found this premise a bit too black-and-white for my taste.  Fortunately, the story is actually well-written and filled with interesting, multi-faceted characters.  As a result, I can forgive the author for laying it on a bit too thickly here and there --- the book's a good read, and that's all that matters.
Two minor issues with the book:  1.  some of the characters tend to suffer from Keanu Reevitis --- while confronted with mindblowing supernatural chaos that would leave most sane people catatonic with shock, they remain calm, blink and go "whoa".  Seriously, if you're going to go through the trouble of creating all these interesting characters, it would make sense to have them react like normal folks and run away screaming at the top of their lungs when dealing with some of this stuff.  2.  the author seems to be unaware of the difference between "than" and "then", writing things like "he was closer then ever to her" at least 4 or 5 times throughout the novel.  Yes, I know my copy was an advance uncorrected proof, and yes, the good lord created copy editors to weed out those mistakes, but still... it's stunning to me that a professional author would commit that basic error so many times.  Then again, while my grasp of basic English grammar may be fairly solid, I could never write a story like this one, so maybe I should just shut up.
Anyway, I do recommend "The Edge of Reason" to folks interested in good present-day fantasy (provided they can deal with a strong dislike for religion).  ***

Next up:  it's been a while since my last re-read of Watchmen, so I think I'm going to pick that up again in preparation for the movie.  (And as I probably won't write a review of this towering classic, I'll already say it gets five stars.  If you've never read a graphic novel, do yourself a favor and read this one.  It doesn't get much better than Alan Moore in top form.)

Baen is re-releasing all of Poul Anderson's "Technic Civilization" stories.  The first of 5 projected volumes is "The Van Rijn Method", focusing on the early stages of the inter-stellar civilization and on Nicholas Van Rijn, a merchant and bon-vivant who played a large role in some of the early stories.  I wasn't really familiar with Poul Anderson before, and to be honest, I probably still couldn't say I am --- apparently he was one of the most prolific writers of his generation with 70 or so novels and countless short stories and collections.  Yikes.
I tend to approach older SF with lowered expectations (see also: Alfred Bester, Cordwainer Smith), but in this case I was pleasantly surprised.  Some of these stories have a wonderful old-fashioned SF feel to them:  Anderson starts with the science and works outward from there.  A planet may be at such and such a distance from its fun and at a certain inclination, which has a specific effect on the climate, which again influences the evolution of a species, and so on.  He then effectively ties all of this into plot and, to a lesser extent, character development (always a weak point in older SF in my opinion). 
The main attraction in these stories is the title character, Nicholas Van Rijn, a larger than life merchant, loud, boisterous and brilliant.  His speech mannerisms alone are enough to make these stories fun.  The next book in the series is titled "David Falkayn, Star Trader", which seems to indicate no more Van Rijn stories... What a shame. 
While the stories in this collection definitely show their age, I found them easier to read than some others from this period.  I especially liked the one longer piece, "The Man Who Counts" (either a very short novel or a long novella), which tied all the qualities of the shorter stories together and made me curious to read some more long-form work by Anderson.  So, all in all a pleasant surprise.   ***

Next up:  "The Edge of Reason", Melinda Snodgrass.

I'm having trouble writing something coherent and meaningful about this book.  (Although, to be fair, I usually have trouble writing anything coherent and meaningful.)  The books is a collection of some of Cordwainer Smith's short stories and his only complete novel, "Norstrilia".  I was unfamiliar with the author before this, aside from the famous short "Scanners Live in Vain".  I was also unaware of the fact that all of his works fit into the same future history, spanning thousands of years.  Now, having read up on the author's life and works, I do feel admiration for his body of work, but I can't say I completely enjoyed this book. 
I make an effort to read a "classic" of the genre once in a while.  Invariably, I come away disappointed.  I'm sure part of this is due to overly high expectations.  On the other hand, I also think that in the golden age of SF, ideas were considered more important than little things like character development and narrative flow.  Unfortunately, the ideas that were so revolutionary and innovative at the time have often become mainstays by now.  I often find that I can only enjoy some of these novels by trying to place myself in the shoes of a contemporary reader who isn't familiar with modern SF, sort of a meta-suspension of disbelief.  I'm just not that good at it.  In the end, I feel like I've read a novel that would be considered so-so by today's standards, filled with ideas that used to be spectacular but are now commonplace. 
Now, to be fair, Cordwainer Smith was a good writer.  He had this odd and very interesting tendency to switch from high-flying, almost poetic prose to very dry, matter-of-fact descriptions - the odd thing being that the dry descriptions were often used for the most outlandish SF concepts.  It must have been very odd, reading this in the sixties.
This collection is structured according to internal chronology.  Unfortunately, this means that the first story "The Dead Lady of Clown Town", which depicts what is almost a messianic event in the over-all story arc, doesn't really have much of an impact on the first-time reader --- you need to be familiar with the story to understand how meaningful the story of d'Joan is.  Likewise, the climax of the story "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" doesn't really make much sense if you're not familiar with the surrounding events.  As a result, I was vaguely annoyed reading the short stories at first, although now, looking back after having read the entire collection, I can see the impact they would have had on someone more familiar with the author.  It's almost like reading a prequel first --- yes, this happened first in the internal chronology, but that doesn't mean you should read it first.  
So.  I'm giving this collection three stars.  If I were to judge the overall body of work of the author and its position in the history of SF, I'd rate it higher, but I'm not --- I'm judging this oddly structured collection of stories Baen released.  I hate to say it, but I don't think they did the legacy of Cordwainer Smith much good. 

Next up:  Lately I have this odd desire to read military SF.  I don't know where it came from, but there it is.  I found a copy of "A Desert Called Peace" by Tom Kratman on my TBR pile.  It's almost 1000 pages long, and I suspect it will cure me of this desire for a long, long time.  I base this prediction on the following blurb from the author's website:  "Tom Kratman's A Desert Called Peace is practically the platonic ideal of epic Jacksonian war-porn. The printing process involves soaking the books in testosterone. It is so beautifully, terribly and gloriously Jacksonian, in fact, that merely reading the book carries the risk of pregnancy for unprotected women and metrosexuals."

The only reason I read this short story collection is because I felt like reading some light military SF (which doesn't happen quite often).  What I was hoping for was some short tales of cameraderie and heroism --- "Let's go get those bastards, boys!  Let's do it for the sarge!" and so on.  Instead, the first story is about newborn babies being turned into potential unwilling suicide bombers later in life.  So... it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.  Still, a decent collection of stories, some better than others but no obvious clunkers.  Aside from the story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch I mentioned before, my favorites were "Rocket Boy" by Paul McAuley and "Spec Ops" by L.E. Modesitt Jr.  Again, neither of them were exactly what I expected, but pretty good nonetheless.   ***

Next up:  I probably won't start anything new today or tomorrow... which means I should start putting together my end-of-year reading report at some point.  

"Midnight Never Come" is mostly set in London during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, while in a hidden hall under the city of London, the faerie queen Invidiana reigns over the faerie population.  The story follows two main characters:  Deven, a young Gentlemen Pensioner (sort of a noble bodyguard devoted to Elizabeth), and Lune, who is a faerie lady in Invidiana's court.  Marie Brennan divides her novel into five acts, according to the conventions of Elizabethan drama, and actually structures the progression of her plot accordingly --- this really impressed me.  Especially the first act - the exposition - is artfully done, introducing the two protagonists in alternating scenes, with Deven's fortunes on the rise as he is accepted into the Gentlemen Pensioners, and Lune's status diminishing after an unfortunate mission for her queen.  The story moves along at a solid clip (although it does slow down a bit in the third act and seems a bit forced at times) and progresses to a satisfying conclusion.  Marie Brennan is someone to look out for - she obviously does her research and has solid skills as a writer.  ***

Next up:  don't know yet.  I want something light and entertaining to read during the holidays, but nothing seems to pop out from the TBR piles.  I may just grab a Discworld novel to re-read. 

"The New Space Opera" is a somewhat deceptively titled but otherwise very good collection of short stories by what the editors refer to as "new space opera" authors.  I put "somewhat deceptively" because, in my opinion, most of the stories don't really qualify as space opera.  Space opera is a sub-genre of SF, consisting of over-the-top, galaxy-wide adventure stories, often with larger than life heroes, usually containing lots of space ships, dealing with a numbers of planets or galaxies or even universes.  It's adventure, romance and violence.  Galaxy-wide intrigues.  Multiple societies on multiple planets.  Aliens, if at all possible, should be included --- ideally many different kinds of them.  Also, space opera doesn't pay too much attention to science - as a matter of fact, I'd go as far as saying that it doesn't count as space opera if it doesn't have some form of faster-than-light or hyper-speed or phase space or whatever else the author comes up with that allows ships to shoot from galaxy to galaxy in a few hours or days.
So anyway.  The stories in this collection all range from good to excellent.  There are really no clunkers in there (although strangely enough, the very first story - by Gwyneth Jones - comes closest).  The odd thing is that many of the stories just aren't space opera.  One of them is set entirely under the ice on one of Jupiter's moons.  While it's a thrilling story, it's really not space opera.  Others are confined to a single city.  Kage Baker's story, loosely connected to the "Empress of Mars" novella (and I just figured out this is actually connected to her Company series) deals with someone setting up a theater company on a Martian colony.  It's great, but it's just not space opera.
Of course, the short story as a format by definition doesn't lend itself to the epic narrative form you'd expect for space opera, but if you're willing to concede that some of these stories offer slices of a larger epic, a snapshot of a longer story, then they could work as space opera.  In fact, some of the stories are presented as part of an author's established SF universe.  E.g. Peter F. Hamilton's story appears to be set somewhere between "Judas Unchained" and "The Dreaming Void" (and explains some of the new concepts that popped up in the 1500 year gap between those 2 novels).  Other stories are part of a series of short stories that tell a larger story.
There are some great stories in this collection.  The final story, "Muse of Fire" by Dan Simmons, is simply excellent.  "Minla's Flowers" by Alistair Reynolds is also great (and reminded me of "Tuf Voyaging" by George RR Martin).  I'd recommend this anthology to anyone who is looking for new authors to try, and to people interested in the genre.  However, if you're new to space opera, you're probably better off trying something by Iain M. Banks (who is missing from this collection, unfortunately) or Peter F. Hamilton.

Next up:  picked at random from my TBR pile:  "Majestrum", by Matthew Hughes.

This is the 1200 page long 6th installment in Erikson's Malazan Books of the Fallen series.  I enjoyed the book, but 1200 pages was really pushing it a bit for me.  There is just so much going on in this series, with plot lines developing over several novels, that it occasionally gets hard to follow everything.  There are hundreds of characters, and again, I found it hard to keep some of them separate.  I am torn between being in awe of Erikson's scope and imagination, and annoyed at some of his quirks and occasional lack of cohesion.  Some of the characters seem to be variations on the same theme --- there are lots of gritty, grubby soldier types with similar, monosyllabic names for example.  I also am finding it nearly impossible to keep all the T'lan Imass separate. 

Still, the entire series is an impressive feat so far.  I wish I could read this as an html-type text or on an e-reader, so I could mark passages in some of the books to skip back to.  That would definitely make it easier to follow everything.  E.g., the structure of the series so far is as follows.  Book 1 starts sort-of mid-plot, depending on what you consider the start of the over-all story, but let's just say the main catalyst for the entire story has already taken place and is simply not explained until book 2.  Book 2 is completely separate from book 1 and takes place roughly simultaneously, but on another continent and with mostly different characters.  Book 3 picks up where book 1 leaves off, and book 4 continues book 2's story.  Book 5 is completely separate again and takes place roughly at the same time as books 1 and 2, but on a separate continent and with (yes) mostly different characters.  Book 6 (the one I just read) finally begins to pull everything together, but that means Erikson is referring to some things that happened waaaay back in the series. 

Added to that, the series literally throws you into this fantasy world with thousands upon thousands of years of history, none of which is conveniently explained early on, some of which I'm only beginning to get now (after 5000 pages of reading).  Races have come and gone, warred, set up civilizations, declined, become extinct.  Some characters have been around since the dawn of time.  Some have "ascended" to become gods or at least god-like.  I think part of the reason so many people hated book 1 of this series is that there's just an avalanche of unexplained material that's thrown into what's already a very hard to follow plot.  If ever a series needed a "The World of ..."-type reference book, this is it.  There are websites like this already, but it's hard to avoid spoilers.

To make everything even more complicated, I just found out that Erikson's friend, who co-designed the Malazan universe with him (originally for a game, it seems) is now also going to write books in the Malazan universe.  As I understand it, these will be set before the start of Erikson's book 1.  It's going to get harder and harder to tell newcomers how to approach this series.

Next up:  Well, books 7 and 8 are already out, but I'm waiting for the mass market paperback editions --- I need a break anyway after this tome.  I'll have to take a look at the TBR piles.