Another fun old sci-fi anthology; for me, Eric Frank Russell's "Diabologic" was a particular favorite.

As many reviews have already said, this is definitely Stephenson's most "accessible" work yet, in that it has a much broader appeal than the hardcore sci-fi/geek set. That's definitely not a bad thing, either! Think of it as a Clive Cussler or James Patterson adventure as written by someone who's actually wildly intelligent and an extremely good writer.

Quite simply, one of the most beautiful fantasy books I've read. As good as the movie is -- and it is, joining _The Princess Bride_ in my all-too-short list of films that can unashamedly live side-by-side with their original written form -- Beagle's prose is what really sets this book apart. A pity I hadn't read this before now, but I'm glad I finally did.

Most of the sci-fi collections I've been reading lately have been fairly old -- usually published somewhere between the 60s and the 80s -- so it was a lot of fun to pick up something more recent. Quite a few good stories in here. Amusingly, and probably quite related to the amount of older works I've been reading, the story that stood out to me the most was Stephen Baxters…which was written as an homage to Golden Age sci-fi. Fun stuff.

While I love these big collections of Golden Age stories (though my copy was printed in the 80s, the collection was actually assembled in 1952 or 1953), and there are a lot of fun ideas and stories, it can lead to an occasional amused wince when you stumble across stories that incorporate the often non-malicious but still very present societal racism or gender biases of the time. Made me laugh more than once. Still a great collection of stories.

I must admit, I chose to read this book first in my quest to read all of this year's Philip K. Dick nominees simply because I expected to find least interesting. I'm not big into military stories (the only other military-themed SF I can remember reading is Heinlein's [b:Starship Troopers|17214|Starship Troopers|Robert A. Heinlein|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1234902570s/17214.jpg|2534973]), so when sorting from least-curious to most-curious by back cover blurbs, this made it to the top of the pile.

However, I found it a lot more interesting and enjoyable than I expected. While there's certainly no doubt about this falling into the realm of military SF, it incorporates enough other aspects through Ia's abilities, characterization, and motivation that I had no problems getting through to the end, and never felt like I was slogging through it or reading it "just because" instead of out of actual enjoyment. Military hoo-rah may not be my thing, but Ia's an interesting enough character that I'll enjoy following up with her story when the sequels come out.

I definitely enjoyed this one; it's a fun mix of detective noir and sci-fi that kept me engaged enough to plow through in just two days. Admittedly, the mystery of the city's secret was pretty obvious partway through, but as the characters still had to figure it out, not to mention wrap up all the other threads, this was a case where the journey was more the point than the destination.