My Santa got me the first THREE books in a great series I had never heard of.

The first one has a bit of a buddy cop aspect to it (great for a Law & Order fan like myself), hard scifi in the vein of Arthur C. Clark (just spaceships that have to speed up and slow down (no mystic energy fields or hokey religions), a bit of corporate do-badding, and some brown alien goo as a ultimate threat.

The second book lost the buddy cop bit, and replaced it with ... MOBILE INFANTRY! Real, Heinlein Starship Troopers Marines in body tanks - none of that Verhoeven junk.

I only got about forty pages into the third one this morning before having to leave for work, and so far they've put in what I think are stargates.

Also, after two books I had to look this series up on wikipedia, and it seems the SyFy channel is making a miniseries from it starring Thomas Jane as the burnt-out cop from the first book. The Punisher. In space. There's also a fourth book and some novellas that have made it to the top of my to-buy list.

I hope you're happy with yourself Santa. Because I don't have cable TV, which means I'll have to head up to my parents house and inflict all ten hours of that show on them. Here's hoping for their sake it turns out more Battlestar Galactica and less Sharknado.

This was an truly amazing find Santa. A-#1 all the way.