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I finished the brand-new Joe Abercrombie, Half a King, last night. I enjoyed it a lot, although I guess it's not really breaking new ground. It is kind of pitched as YA, meaning it has a young protagonist, less swearing, and is fairly short, but otherwise it's the typical collection of great Abercrombie characters. It's basically a revenge tale set in a viking-esque fantasy world.
Before that I read Shelter by Susan Palwick. On paper it doesn't sound great - it's a relatively near future SF novel largely about dealing with a disturbed child - but I really enjoyed it. I didn't know what it was about going in, and maybe it's better approaching it that way. These days I seem to really enjoy stories about ordinary people and their small struggles a lot more than stories about supermen, especially when they're this well conveyed.
I've also recently been picking my way through the short fiction for the 1939 Retro Hugos, which are being awarded this year alongside the regular Hugos. My main impression so far is that 1938 SF is total garbage, but I've still got a fair bit to get through. Of the five short stories, only the humorous Arthur C Clarke (How We Went to Mars) is worth the time of day. (It's not in the Hugo voter packet, but it is in the free sample of The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke.)
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