User blog comment:SpartHawg948/SpartHawg's Book Corner!!! Part 2!!! 2011 Edition!!!/@comment-58609-20120101131245

Looking at the list, it's clear that we have somewhat different tastes. Also stems from enjoying writing more than reading nowadays. I'll spare you a list of my own and provide comments on where there is overlap:

-S.M. Sterling: Definately not my favourite writer I'm afriad. His 'hijacking' of the Terminator series with his Infiltrator Trilogy didn't really endear me to him (since when did Terminator become an anti-Luddite rant?) and I found 'Dies the Fire' to...well, it was a long time ago, but he failed to sustain my interest.

-The Lost Fleet: ...moving on. Oh God, moving on...

-Halo: Cryptum: Personally my least favourite Halo novel...which is odd, because I'm far more for cultural sci-fi than military sci-fi. Unfortunately, having a whiny, annoying protagonist didn't help matters. Nice ideas, but I felt it would have been much better served had it been from the humans' POV.

-Gears of War: I'd accuse Traviss of pulling Sterling on GoW, but unlike Inflitrator, it was more a case of her establishing the universe rather than hijacking it. Unfortunately, I found the novels to be filled with Travis tropes (politicians and scientists are TEH EVILLLLLL! for example). They're well written in themselves IMO, and I found Coalition's End to be the best by its overall feeling of desperation and that the viewpoints were BALANCED for once, but...well, then again, I've written for the Locust POV more in fanfics I've done (Locust culture is completely absent in her novels...thanks...or not), so maybe it's a matter of taste.

-Halo: Glasslands: If I were to rate the Halo novels from best to worst, Glasslands would be around Contact Harvest for me, except while CH had interesting Covenant and boring humans, Glasslands had interesting humans and boring Covenant. After reading her GoW novels, I was pleasently surprised how non-preachy the novel was. While GoW seemed to follow "COG is good, everyone else is bad," Glasslands I found to be far more balanced.