You Suck, Moore. No. I didn’t hate this so much that I stopped reading it, but I would have if I had had anything else to read. The dedication reads “For my readers, by request,” which may be why the whole thing feels rushed or forced or otherwise off-putting. Here’s a passage that struck me as particularly egregious on first reading, though it doesn’t grate so badly now (maybe I’ve just been beaten into submission):

She was enjoying teaching Tommy about the particulars of vampirism, just as she enjoyed teaching him how to do grown-up human things like how to get the power and phone turned on in the loft—it made her feel sophisticated and in charge, and after a series of boyfriends for whom she had been little more than an accoutrement, whose lifestyles she had affected, from heavy-metal anarchists to financial-district yuppies, she liked being the pacesetter for a change.

Really? There was no better way to get that information to the reader than just laying it out there all at once? And do we really care? I suspect that it’s tempting to indulge in this sort of acceleration in a sequel, where you might want to bring the new readers up to speed without boring the readers who remember the character from the previous work, but I remain unconvinced that it’s a good idea: first, it’s easier to care about the character’s motivations if we have to tease them out of the narrative than when they’re vomited in our laps; second, if the character already has that level of self-knowledge at page 30, how much development can we expect? The story was mostly harmless, though there was a weird bit of gratuitous backstory ex machina, and I found the playing of non-consensual sex for laughs to be rather distasteful.
Update: Google leads me to believe that I have invented the phrase backstory ex machina. First “Buddha attack”, now this.

Lord of Light, Zelazny. Yes. Upon re-reading, I do believe the protagonist in this work is qualitatively different from those I mentioned before, if not so much in himself (and I do believe there are substantial differences in the character, but my argument doesn’t have to rest there) as in having peers, rather than just rivals and perhaps a mentor (and I’m simplifying, but I think not over-). There was some homophobia and misogyny, though an argument could be made that they were posturing by the character to evoke a response. I don’t think Zelazny wrote many gay characters, sympathetic or otherwise. Smokers, yes, even if they have to roll their own cigarettes. I imagine he quit about the time his protagonists did, but it doesn’t seem to have been soon enough for him.
Probably not the most reliable introduction to the Hindu or Buddhist religions.

The Brief History of the Dead, Brockmeier. No. The only thing I found wrong with this book was that it failed to fulfill its promise, and its promise was so great that failure is a disqualifying defect. The first chapter was lovely (Nebula-nominated, O. Henry anthology-appearing), and the writing was lovely throughout (if a bit masturbatory in spots), but ultimately, however lovely it was, it took what should have been a big idea and did nothing with it.

The Killing of Worlds, Westerfeld. Yes. The conclusion of The Risen Empire, it’s largely indistinguishable in quality from the prior work. The overall work is somewhat disappointing in plot-related ways. Not Books of Lost Swords disappointing, but it perhaps underscores the difficulty of constructing a plot that justifies the sweep of space opera.