Connie Willis's time travelers have been on pretty smooth downward slope since she started, it's unfortunate - I think success leading to less portion control is one of the big thing. Blackout needed to be a few chapters in a book, not a tome the size of a dictionary. Also the fretty chaos fit very well with To Say Nothing, but the same fretty chaos gets old every book.

Jay Lake's stuff is mystifying to me - giant clockwork world is an awesome setting, and then the stories he puts in it are just noodling wastes and confusing as hell.

I just put hundred thousand kingdoms on my kindle, which has totally reduced the activation energy from reading a good review to buying the book.