in no particular order. books which are closely linked and/or in a linear series are filed under one entry. so there, captain planet!
china miéville
perdido street station
this is possibly the best fantasy novel i've read in a long time. i say possibly because its loose sequel, the scar, is almost exactly as awesome. it's very dark and gothic, and some people might be a little disturbed by the incredible gruesomeness (particularly where "remaking" happens); however, the author (who, might i add, is my current favourite author) has an incredible grasp of the language, and some parts easily outdo tolkein in terms of linguistic awesomeness. the genre is science fiction and fantasy, but mostly steampunk. as in, giant skyrail things, steam-powered computers and robots, sentient non-human races, dirigibles and other airships abound. plus, a large chunk of the book is a massive monster hunt, with scary monsters. they eat souls.
the scar
the scar is the second book set in bas-lag.
iron council
iron council is the final (so far) bas-lag novel, and the second set in new crobuzon
greg egan
greg egan is a computer programmer and sci-fi author who lives in perth. he writes really cool and extremely hard science fiction, from a programmer's point of view. totally fun to read and very intellectually stimulating.
quarantine
quarantine a detective story; with parallel universes!
permutation city
permutation city: the best book (possibly the only book) written from the point of view of an artificially intelligent simulation of a person. totally awesome.
diaspora
it's like epic space opera, mixed with the world's awesomest maths textbook. no other work of fiction goes through two hundred trillion different universes. i swear.
peter f. hamilton
the j.r.r. tolkein of science fiction. think strange aliens, incredibly epic settings, books the size and weight of cinderblocks.
the night's dawn trilogy
a total of over 3,000 pages of epic sci-fi that segues into brutally gruesome horror. a lot of fun to read if you have a spare month.
fallen dragon
the book that coined the phrase "asset realization".
the commonwealth saga
it has wormholes.
douglas adams
what can one say? the inventor of everything cool, including (but not limited to) the sirius sector cybernetics corporation, the pan galactic gargle blaster, the ravenous bug-blatter beast of traal, and the infinte improbability drive.
the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
a solid lump of awesomeness. the best of surreal humour in a science fiction setting. hysterically absurd: "the vogon spaceships hung in the sky in precisely the way that bricks don't"; "the nutri-mat invariably produced cups of a sickly yellow substance that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea"; "'it wouldn't stand a whelk's chance in a supernova.' 'what's a whelk got to do with a supernova?' arthur asked. 'it wouldn't,' said ford evenly, 'stand a chance in one.'"
there's also another four books; taken together, the are the trilogy of five.
dirk gently's holistic detective agency
dirk gently is who i would want to be when i grow up, except that i don't live in cambridge and i don't know how to hypnotise people with a spoon and then pull a sea anemone from their bottom. it's something that's hard to practise.
kim stanley robinson
he's like some rock-climbing dude.
the mars trilogy
very good future history about terraforming mars.