Words are inadequate

I reread them recently, partially because I had been so let down: while I knew I wouldn't like them as much as I've liked most of his books, if I was rereading them without as many preconceptions of how awesome they should be, I thought I would enjoy them more.

I was correct. However, they still weren't as good as his really good stuff, and I still definitely like EW the least, so it gets its own tier of lesserness.

The FCPL has Stress and Tides at the Reston Regional branch at a minimum, btw (not the recent reprints), which is how I got to read them for the first time, around when Lex Luther Makes Me Wonder What Impact His Scheme Would Have On The Geologic Record came out.

I'm definitely curious about the short story collection (I think I heard about it and then forgot about it), especially as I recall him saying in an interview something along the lines of, if he's going to bother doing enough research and character development to make a good short story, he might as well expand it out to a novel, as it doesn't take him that much more effort. Are they his normal sort of alt history or magic realism, or what?

Oh, have you read the in-character sonnets he wrote to accompany 3DTN?