I'm about 80% through Pandora's Star by Peter F Hamilton. It's okay. Went in with quite high expectations since it comes up a lot but man, so much of it could be cut. The man likes to incessantly ramble and describe the most mundane and uniportant details. And there's a lot of viewpoints. Which I'm not necessarily adverse to (I've read Wheel of Time) but it does chop and change quite a bit and mostly just as something exciting starts happening, it cuts to a different POV. I'll probably read the second book to finish the story but doubt I'd read another of his.
I gave up on The Martian because I hated the writing, especially the dialogue. So I wasn't sure how I was going to get on with this. And once again I found the writing to be grating. I rolled my eyes a lot. I was pretty much about to give up when he noticed the other ship. That alone got me to finish the book.
All the first contact stuff was pretty great and by far my favourite part of the book. I enjoyed the vast majority of that. The slow reveal of what happened I thought was done quite well but I didn't much care about it. Once Rocky (I hated the name though) came onto the scene I had little interest in the other stuff. Overall it seems I like Weir as a storyteller but hate him as a writer. The science stuff was weird as Grace seems to really love explaining the most basic of things that a scientist should just know. I get that he was a teacher but still. Also the fact that music was never mentioned was a strange omission.
Not sure I'd read another of his. Might just wait for the inevitable film. Not sad I read it though.
The series, from what I understand is only loosely connected as in it's set in the same universe. The next couple in the series are supposed to be really good.
Consider Phlebas. I've wanted to read the Culture series for years. It's an odd one so far. I've seen a lot of people advise to not start with Phlebas and I can see why.
I am enjoying it but parts of it feel very tangential. About halfway through so far.