I'm an SF Geek, mostly modern stuff, although Orwell and Huxley get a peek in. Tolkien (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings) was pretty formative, Neil Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon' is a favourite, as are several of Neil Gaiman's works (in particular American Gods). In terms of proper SF, the list's a bit on the long side. I recently finished Simon Ing's 'The Weight of Numbers' (not published in the US, and not SF), which is an excellent, excellent book.
Other authors generally enjoyed include Ken MacLeod, Kim Stanley Robinson, Stephen Baxter, and Greg Egan.
In terms of collections of shorter fiction, my hands-down favourite collections are Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others", which contains some great, unique SF/Science-Fantasy (as in: they're fantastical, but written with a Science-Fictional sensibility if that makes any sense) stories, and Kelly Link's mind and genre-bending 'weird fiction', beautifully written collection "Magic for Beginners" (stories have deservedly won several awards). If you want to give Link a try, one of the stories from Magic for Beginners can be read here, and her entire first collection, 'Stranger Things Happen' (which is next on my 'to read' pile) may be downloaded/read for free under a Creative Commons license right here.
You might find it a bit too strange (some people can't 'connect' with Link's writing), but I love it to death.Mattia Valente38857.1737615741
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