Wow pleased to see so many of you still read. cool. Anyways, If you are interested in near future sort of stuff I really enjoyed Moving Mars and Slant. He's got some really interesting ideas and unlike a lot of sci-fi writers has a good sense of both science *and* character development. The best writer, and the only convincing stylist, that science fiction has produced is Jack Vance. He writes unique dialogue, refined and erudite and yet totally believable. At his best (the Demon Prince novels, the Planet Of Adventure novels, Tales Of Dying Earth, Big Planet), you'll blow through 300 pages of elegantly plotted, picaresque adventure without even realizing it. ;) Others that I also like a lot: Orson Scott Card - "Ender's Game" was a staggering performance, and the others that I've read have been nearly as great. :) Stanislaw Lem - *Solaris* is great, although a first time reader would probably be wise to start with "The Cyberiad". Philip K. Dick - He wasn't the greatest writer, and at times you can really read the drugs, but he wrote some amazing books -- my favorite is "Confessions Of A Crap Artist" which isn't even remotely SF. Another author I love but sometimes can't stand is Tim Powers, who can write a smashingly great book ("The Anubis Gates," "The Drawing Of The Dark") and can also write ... the ... most ... tedious ... expository ... dialogue ... that ... really ... slows ... a ... story ... to ... a ... c r a w l ... My list would also consist of a bunch of authors that have written books that I liked, without the consistency of the above (Cordwainer Smith, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Silverberg), and a few SF books written by non-SF authors (notably "The Handmaid's Tale").