Now that I'm done with the Kelly Link collection (above) I'm moving on to two things.
First, another short story collection:
Occultation by Laird Barron. It's a weird, creepy, brilliantly written set of stories with a modern horror flavor. At times reminiscent of Lovecraft, though I think the similarity or imprint is overstated in the reviews I've read. I'll have more to say about this when I finish, because the stories are so different from one another (well, most of them) that I won't really know how to sum it up until I'm finished. I've been trying to think of the last time I read a stronger single-author story collection, and I'm having a hard time without reading for Big Names.
Also, a little more in the direction of "fun" is
Old Man's War by John Scalzi. I think it would be fair to refer to this as an update of Heinlein's
Starship Troopers, in fact Scalzi thanks Heinlein in the front of the book. The twist here is that in the future, an off-planet colonial group recruits Earthlings on their 75th birthday to undergo a physical "renewal" process and take part in an alien war. The tone varies between straight-ahead and lighthearted, without ever veering too far into the serious. Scalzi's a capable and proficient writer without really being a stylist at all, but that's OK. He reminds me of Heinlein in that regard, with the breezy, confident, wisecracking narration.
I'm not too far into
Old Man's War yet I can already see why it's so popular.
