STG's

 Stormblood, by Jeremy Szal, is a SF thriller, and first in a series. I actually got it because Neal Asher recommended it in a tweet. There are some very interesting ideas, which do remind me of Asher's book - the lead guy has alien "tech" inside him, humanity has spread to many planets and is in contact with many alien races. It was just ok for me, however. Feels like more could have been done with the alien tech (which mostly just heals, makes people stronger and faster, and pretty much crazy). Not sure exactly how it gets used as a drug (might have forgotten, was it supposed to feel good? the main character doesn't seem to think so). Also he gets captured by the bad guys several times, and escape every time - felt very repetitive. Several typos and grammar errors, too... Overall, ok, but I will not be following the series.

 I just realized that I haven't posted a book review in months. Now that the books are nowhere near as fresh in my mind, posting reviews seems even more pointless than usual. Thus I will be only listing what I read and how much I liked them from 1-10... This is how you lose the time wars 8.5 Red team blues 8.5 The name of the world is forest 7.5 Upgrade 8.5 Antimatter Blues 7.5 Critical mass 8

Season of Skulls, by Charles Stross, is his latest book in the Laundry-adjacent fantasy series that covers Eve (mostly her, in this case), her brother and friends (all of which have magical powers) and her "husband". This was a very different book from the rest of the series, as it mostly takes place in a made-up dream reality created by magic, a couple of centuries ago from the present, where Eve goes to try to stop her husband from getting a powerful book and trying to raise a dangerous god. Overall, really enjoyable.  

Lockdown Tales 2, by Neal Asher is a collection of shorter SF stories, which (all?) take place in his Polity universe. I was struck by how good these were, although I shouldn't be surprised - Lockdown Tales was also excellent. Naturally many stories cover a smaller situation than his books (specially given the latest trilogy format he used), and are still very compelling. I particularly liked that the Quiet War finally got a story, as well as the anti-aging bits of the universe (of course, that might seem quaint given the golem style mind transfers). Mildly entertaining for me was seeing the several ways SuperIntelligence is possible while reading Nick Bostrom's book, as well as the Prisoner reference, which is a series I never saw but got a lot of references while reading Season of Skulls, just before this one. Overall, excellent.