The Man Kizn Wars by Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, and Dean Ing

I think I have read this book previously, I know that when I was last in the hospital, my dad brought me some books and the fourth (I think) book in this series was among them. He also brought be the Isle of Dr. Moreau while I was in the hospital for some kinda serious surgery.  At any rate, I found this book enjoyable and while the stories on the whole aren't particularly memorable for me, I do tend to remember two of the neat plot points. I remember the last story more because it feeds into some of the later Known Space stories. I like the older sci-fi stories where the entire story seemed like a way to discuss the neat idea (using buckyballs to keep a planet wide goo from eating your ship, for example).

Pages: 289

Eric by Terry Pratchett

I was confused about who Eric was. I thought he was the guy who married DEATH's daughter, but he isn't.
This book didn't have many amusing footnotes. I did not notice many even remotely amusing puns. I don't recall laughing out loud a single time. I didn't like this one much.
Pages: 197

To Rule in Amber by John Gregory Betancourt

This was a less than interesting end to the trilogy. It felt like a fast explanation of the remaining story, instead of telling the story. Perhaps the publisher figured out that no one really liked the books because they weren't by Zelazny. This technically finished the trilogy, but left a lot of loose ends. Also, this feels like a novella because the font, line spacing, and margins are all large.

Pages: 310

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

The Laundry short story, Overtime, was nominated for a Hugo last year. Also, I read it on Tor.com. Finally, Charles Stross has a good blog and he pointed out the chronological order of the Laundry universe books a week or two ago. Luckily, the bookstore had exactly one copy of this book (it's the one to start with), and no others in the series.

This book had some dark moments, but was overall fun. I appreciated that (at least for now) the minor romantic subplot has been taken care of, as that would get in the way of the rest of the story. I used some of the historical knowledge from Cryptonomicon for some of the references to WWII code breaking. And it is sort of interesting to compare this universe to the Thursday Next universe--this one wins easily for me, and not just because the romantic subplot is a major part of the plot in the Thursday Next books. I'll be looking out for these books in the future.

Pages: 368

Warriors edited by George R. R. Martin

Yet another thing Martin is doing instead of working on his Song of Ice and Fire books. This collection was okay, but the best part was finally reading some David Weber and deciding that he is kick ass.

Pages: 736

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.

This is a story collection (short to novella length) rather than just the title story. While some of these stories are clearly pretty amazing, reading 508 pages of depressing, hopeless, slightly insane stories is a bit much. Given some sort of choice, I'd have rather gotten 3 collections instead of a single one.

Pages: 508

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I liked this book more than a lot of Sanderson's other books. The science of the universe's magic isn't as explicitly explained here as in other books. It feels a bit less like a lecture because the entire world is rediscovering everything it forgot generations ago. The main characters aren't as young as in some of Sanderson's other books, which makes their journeys of self-discovery less annoying. I don't like the interludes with the Truthless killer guy. I do like that there was one failed love story already in this book. I sort of don't look forward to the fact that this series will be something like 10,000 pages spread over 15+ years (extrapolation for both numbers). I wasn't reading epic fantasy when WoT started, so I didn't experience the years of waiting. This will be like WoT all over again, except more laid back. I hope it doesn't get the same sort of community as WoT. In another WoT comparison, I appreciate that there seem to be a limited number of main characters.

Pages: 1008

Juggler of Worlds By Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner

This was okay. I coincidentally received Protector for Christmas while reading this. I thought this spelled out a few too many things, rather than leaving them implied. But it was good to read some of the back story about Nessus and Lewis. Also, this one kind of had a happy ending.

Pages: 349