Nice to know we've got some genuine "literati" kicking around in here. Also nice to see people still reading the classics (Alas Babylon). Looks like most of us have similar preferences. OA - I can't read your .pdf file.
I was hoping to find something I hadn't already read that came recommended. MW - I just finished both of Scalzi's books, still sitting on the end table waiting to be shelved. Well worth the effort to find (we discussed "Old Man's War" here last year(?)). An idea for those of you without access to B&N etc.; check out
http://www.baen.com/. Baen has made their niche in the publishing world by concentrating on SF (with a strong military orientation). Jim Baen has an interesting philosophy about the internet and he's very supportive of the military as a whole. I sent them a request a couple years ago and they gave me 50+ cds with books on them (probably 60 titles on four different CDs) that I sent to my brother while he was in Iraq. Takes a laptop to read but he says they went over well. Baen also has a broad free library available online and a web subscription service to sell books at reasonable prices - less than bookstore. If you have internet and a CC you can feed your habit from anywhere in the world. FWIW - Peregrino