Oh, and the fantasticic Space Opera that is the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois Bujold McMaster. Brilliant, and the two first books I have read numerous times.
And CJ Cherryh books in the Foriegner series. A lost human colony that plonks it's self on a world of aliens who are up to steam technology, and have all the social niceties of old Japan, along with the legalised use of an Assassins Guild to help mantain law and order.
Again, brilliant writing.
Trev
ps - Pete, it's very Autumn he mate so bring a coat.
Probably a bit late but I have been hitting the anthologies from Amazon using my kindle app.
For new authors: Star & Empire and Star & Empire 2 had some good stories.
Most of the stories in them are the first novel in a series by an author.
From each of those I went on to read one series of one of the authors.
A great fun read was Joshua Dalzelle's Omega Rising series. I read the synopsis of the first book and thought not for me but then the story was not like the synopsis at all and I am glad I read them.
