The new issue of Locus arrived just before we left, so I spent some time reading reviews and commentary on the SF field over the weekend. It's actually a pretty good issue-- the retro-review of Isaac Asimov is interesting, and while the John Barnes interview doesn't ask the important question ("How can the same person write Mother of Storms and One for the Morning Glory?"), he says some interesting things about his other books. There's also a recommended reading list, that I'll probably comment on elsewhere.
I do want to mention, though, the review column by Gary K. Wolfe, in which he reads a stack of SF thrillers so you don't have to. In particular, he comments on Kim Stanley Robinson's forthcoming Sixty Days and Counting:
Part of the problem, of course, is Robinson's own fault: one of his main flaws as a writer of political thrillers is that he's not nuts.
Orson Scott Card's Empire:
Card, at least in this novel, seems to draw his ideas of setting from Mapquest and of characterization from Mattel action figures... Since nearly all the best lines are given to the more right-wing figures, the overall effect is almost as if Ann Coulter had taken over a story conference for the TV series 24.
and (briefly) Michael Crichton:
[O]ne reason for taking note here of Michael Crichton's recent awful-warning novel Next is that it gives me the opportunity to point out how comparatively moderate, reasonable, and temperate Orson Scott Card seems.
I love it when reviewers get cranky.