Kokipy wrote:

Has McDonald written anything lately, Star? I haven’t seen anything from him in years. Is your change in practice based on disappointment in a recent work?

While the first Luna book, Luna: New Moon, had its pleasures, ultimately I didn’t feel that it was up to the high standard that had led me to read all his books. River of Gods and The Dervish House really raised the bar to a height hard to achieve. While I still respect his work, sadly I can’t keep him on the exalted pedestal on which I had previously placed him. I hope future books will change my mind.

I loved The Dervish House, but have not been able to engage with River of Gods

Kokipy wrote:

I wasn’t wild about the Luna books either. I would probably keep reading him, tho. However my reading seems to have really slowed down lately, not sure why….

I will keep reading him. He’s just no longer in my “authors whose every work I buy without research or question“ category.
 

Really?! Now that itself is intriguing!

Kokipy wrote:

Apocalypse, AI, psychiatry, space flight, colony ships, virtual reality, engineering, alien life forms, pre-historic mammalian development and technology, ethics, terraforming, you name it, this author fit it in, without any damage to the internal consistency of the story. Some of it - primarily the main character’s self-admitted juvenile humor and constant allusions to sci fi tv and movies- gets a trifle tedious but it is within the limits of my toleration. I listened to it on Audible, which might be a better approach than reading it, and while the narrator was not my favorite he was competent for the task. It’s not a great work but I enjoyed it enough to buy the sequels- not that one would need to. The first one resolved satisfactorily. 

Wow that sounds like a stew with many ingredients. Not easy to pull off. Sounds like something I ought to check out - thanks!