I just finished Cryptic by Jack McDevitt, a collection of his short fiction.

I'm a fan of McDevitt's novels, but a lot of the short stories in this collection didn't wow me. Most of them were just OK. Of the 30+ stories, there were probably five that I really liked.

Reading a bunch of different pieces by one author in a row does give you a good sense of their writing. Reading through this collection gives a strong picture of the sense of melancholy that runs through a lot of McDevitt's work.