75. Hunter's Run, by Daniel Abraham, Gardner Dozois, and George R. R. Martin.

Hunter's Run is about an independent miner on a small human colony world, just as humanity is starting to branch out amongst the stars with the help of a mostly indifferent alien race for dispersal. Ramon is crude and angry, and enjoys his time spent out in the wildnerness more than the time boozing and fighting in the cities...although that's always good for some light exercise. After he kills a man, he needs to make a quick trip out. And as luck would have it, this is the trip that he finds something remarkable.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. It was a $1 bargain from the library, and it had three authors, and I was thinking 'ehhhh...maybe I'll give it a go' when I started reading it, but it really blew my expectations out of the water. Ramon is a very interesting character, and I really enjoyed the storyline. Unusual, just predictable enough in places to be enticing, and a really good look at an interesting method of character depiction and development. Totally satisfied my classic-sci fi need that the Shadow series was lacking, and I'm definitely earmarking this one for re-reads in the future. Definitely a fitting book to hit for the three-quarters mark.