Still in the middle of my Wheel of Time re-read. About 150 pages into book 7. The Long Slog begins.
I've also been reading John Scalzi's serialized follow-up to the Old Man's War trilogy, The Human Division. He chose to create the book as a series of interconnected but self-sustaining short stories, and release them weekly for $0.99 each. It's an interesting approach, an experiment to try something old in a new way thanks to ebooks, and I'm betting it's paying off. The second book was a growing pains moment: you pay $0.99 for each book, but they vary in length from something like 6,000 words to 22,000 words. If you see the purchase as one in a series, it's a valid investment; after all, you get the stories, live, for about the same as you'd pay for the final collected version which you have to wait until April to see. If you see the purchase as A Story, however, you're going to feel sorely cheated if you pay the same for 6,000 words by an author on a subject as someone else did for 22,000 by the same author on the same subject.
All meta about the publishing industry aside, it's an interesting addition to the canon of Old Man's War. The original trilogy + 1 (Old Man's War, Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, Zoe's Tale) was an enjoyable near-future look at what would happen if aliens gave us the technology to jump into space and we had to deal with how to compete with a bunch of races that are variously smarter, faster, older, more advanced, better adapted, and more tenacious than us. This particular book ... well, no. So far, I can't think of it as a book. That's not so much because of it being serialized as that it's very seriously a series of stories, not a book in parts. These stories fit well into the environment, and carry the story forward. It's interesting! Following the central story thread, you can see where it picks up from where the books left off. It does leave something to be desired, though, and I feel I can lay that squarely at the feet of Scalzi Being Scalzi.
If you don't know Scalzi, know mostly that he is an outspoken liberal asshole, and he is absolutely not afraid to be snarky in pursuit of a cause. His writing is primarily identified by dialog that is quippy back-and-forth. When you separate a larger story into smaller segments, those quippy moments stop being moments and start becoming the entire vehicle for advancing the plot. It can be grating.
Nevertheless, it does make for a quick read. And he is still an effective writer. I don't think you'll find anything particularly deep or poignant here, but he has his moments.
Redshirts is his latest commercial darling, and it would be a good book to read if you want to test the waters before reading The Human Division. The writing style is most similar (which shouldn't be shocking, as it's the most recently created work next to this), and it's got a serial-format epilogue. It's a parody-style book, so keep that in mind. Definitely read Old Man's War and the others before you get to The Human Division. In short: if you want to read Scalzi, don't start with these stories. If you're okay with Scalzi, give 'em a go. It's definitely still him.
