I read Scalzi's The Android's Dream when it was one of JM's BOTM choices. Both JM and David Hewlett had raved about it, I think JM said it restored his faith in Sci-Fi novels but I really couldn't see what was so amazing about it, it wasn't a bad book but it isn't something I'll ever read again and I've not been tempted to read any of his other work. There were some great ideas in there and if he's just going to be someone to bounce ideas off then he could prove a great asset to the franchise.

My main problem with the novel was that the main character was so overwhelmingly a Mary Sue: genius, heroic soldier, good looking and an all round great guy who saves the universe as we know it. The character was so flawless he just became unbearably generic and dull and I stopped caring and kept wanting to skip ahead to the chapters that dealt with the secondary characters some of whom were so much more interesting.