JUST FINISHED JOHN SCALZI’S OLD MAN’S WAR and liked it very much. It definitely did remind me of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, — along with a bit of John Steakley’s Armor. If you like those books, you’ll certainly like Scalzi’s. I was quite disappointed when it was over, which is a good thing indeed. (It would also make a good movie — something that occurred to me at several points, especially the ping-pong scene.)

I wish I could say the same for David Weber’s The Shadow of Saganami, but although I’ve enjoyed earlier books in this series, this one just dragged — because, I think, the politics were too realistic. It’s space opera, and that means it needs action, and character development. This was like reading a Horatio Hornblower novel (on which the series is modeled) and having 3/4 of it taken up by diplomatic maneuverings surrounding the Peninsular Campaign. No, no, no. (But it made number 16 on the NYT Hardcover Bestsellers list, so I’ll bet Weber doesn’t care what I think. But bear in mind that I didn’t find Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle too long and discursive . . . .)