Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

I'm not sure how I feel about this book.  It was good, an interesting story, but somehow despite that, I had a hard time finishing it. The author goes off on a lot of tangents and seems to relish the occasional absurdly artistic sidenote.  I'm sure that's what won it the Pulitzer prize, but I hated that stuff. It brought the momentum of the actual story to a screeching halt for some random bits that sounded cool, but were nearly irrelevant.  Cut all that crap out, and I'm sure I would have liked it a lot better.  Also, as a scientist, I wanted much more explicit description of what exactly was going on during sex scenes and examinations.  Maybe the author just assumes you'll go to the internet and check it out yourself, but that seems like his research is incomplete or he never truly understood what he was writing about to begin with.  Either way, it comes off weak and shy of hard details.
To sum it up:  Story is good, pacing is slow, too many artsy forays thrown in

Visitors - Orson Scott Card (The Pathfinder series, Bk 3)

I love Orson Scott Card. I think he might be my favorite author. He is beautifully articulate. His ideas are so complex they are sexy, yet he presents them in a way in which nearly anyone could understand.  This book wraps up the Pathfinder series and has an excellent ending.  As time jumpers, where, or more exactly, when, do you end a book? Do they go on and on forever? Card ends with a very nice, "I'll jump ahead to sometime and settle there." Indicating the continued use of the time manipulating powers and leaving it open, but with a plan so you still feel satisfied that you know how it will end.
My favorite part was how he resolved the time continuum conundrum:  Do you go back in time and change the future? Or is the present this way because you already changed the past?  Card's answer: Both.  And of all the time things I've read, that's my favorite.
I highly recommend this series to anyone with a brain, who likes to use it.