Recommended Reading

A friend asked me this weekend for some SF/fantasy recommendations. Having established that he found Perdido Street Station too bleak, I wound up recommending these:

• Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
• The Native Star by M. K. Hobson
• His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
• Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Interesting that these are all alternate-history fantasies with a definite romance component...