The God Engines / John Scalzi

Scalzi's Nebula-nominated novella, published as a stand-alone hardcover, is a major change of pace, a space opera/fantasy/horror hybrid about a spacefaring human civilization learning a thing or two about the deities they revere. A bit pretentious and heavy on expository dialogue, but its premise is striking, and its final third contains some of Scalzi's darkest and most visceral storytelling. Not a complete success, but what it does right, it does very right. (***1/2)