Old Man's War

I'm not normally a fan of Mil-SF, but John Scalzi's Old Man's War was very well written, and a very thoughtful look at interstellar, inter-species war. It owes a lot to Starship Troopers and other sci-fi, but with a more modern take on the technologies that will be available to the troops of the fascist interstellar governments of the future. The core of the novel is very much the personal journey of the main character, John Perry, from aging man on earth to space soldier defending Earth and its colonies from a range of alien species. Very much worth reading, and I'll be reading the sequels.

Jagannath

Karen Tidbeck's Jagannath was the second book of the five I bought in a Weird Fiction bundle from storybundle.com. It was also sad and lonesome and strange and magical, and tells stories of a reality quite unlike our own. A man who falls in love with an airship; a woman dealing with the death of her father and the strange disappearance of her mother many years earlier; a the people of strange holiday village in the wilderness of Sweden are some of the short stories in this collection. It is very Scandinavian, and it full of mythical creatures from folklore. It reminded me in some ways of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short stories - the underlying desolation covered by a magical weirdness that permeates the world. Well worth a read.