While I liked Greg Egan's other novels, Diaspora didn't grip me at all and was very hard to get through. The fact that it revolves around an advanced species that can change itself to any degree it wants to made it hard to feel sypathy with any of the characters. The beginning was really strong, describing how their civilizations and personalities are formed. But after that, to my feeling the book consisted only of excalating physicsbabble and arbitrary personality changes, and this escalation continued right upon the not quite satisfying end.
Patternmaster was very enjoyable, and presented great characters (ever Octavia Butler's strength). There was decent worldbuilding, and I'd love to learn more about this world that is a distant decendant of ours – but sadly, the book ends way too early, at a point where I felt there hadn't been all that much plot yet.
Carrie was a good book, and I think its biggest failing was that it felt like a great book that followed a blueprint to greatness. But you can't say that the blueprint doesn't work – because it does. Carrie is one of those horror books that make very clear that the supernatural is not the stuff horrors are made of. That's reserved for regular humans and their actions and decisions. Stephen King is really good at painting humans in their day-to-day lives, with both their kindness and their cruelty. His pacing is also awesome and reminded me a bit of a tuned-down Vonnegut.
I like Ann Leckie a lot, but Night's Slow Poison didn't work for me – the story was either too short or too aimless for me to appreciate.