Cool site! I’m looking at the list to see what I’ve read. So far, not much, though I did read Susannah Clarke.
If awards are what you want, look at the Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards.
Every award ever given in the field. Worldwide. By year, category, name, etc.
Mark Kelly did a great job.
Nit pick… Iain Banks writes his Sci-Fi as Iain M Banks, if you by a book by Iain Banks without the ‘M’ it will be his contempary stuff.
I liked The Wasp Factory, was hugely impressed by the his non-sci-fi stuf. I really rate his sci-fi stuff (Player of Games, Feersum Endjinn).
[Returns to mom’s basement to re-sort magic-the-gather cards] 
Stephen Brust: His Taltos series is high fantasy told with a detective noir tone. Very good stuff. One quirk about it is that the books were written out of chronological order, which makes the inevitable, “Which book should I read first?” question a little tricky. He also has done a few books set in the same universe, but written as a pastiche of Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, that are quite funny.
James Morrow: One of my favorite authors, his books are very dark, satirical urban fantasies with a strong, and terribly sympathetic, focus on Western religion. He’s best known for Towing Jehovah, about the discovery of God’s miles long corpse floating in the mid-Atlantic, and the efforts taken to inter it in an Arctic tomb.
Jonathan Lethem: He made a big splash with his dystopian *Gun, with Occasional Music," which tied in such disparate elements as Brave New World, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and the works of Raymond Chandler, but As She Crawled across the Kitchen Table was a much more ambitious work, focusing around the creation of a miniature black hole in a university lab, and the problems it creates for the social life of the protagonist.
That’s what I’ve got off the top of my head. I’m sure I’ll be back as new names present themselves.
I’ll vouch for all Miller’s recommendations as well, with the caveat that I find Morrow to be a little on the didactic side for my tastes. Brust, however, can be wonderful; Phoenix Guards is a lovely companion volume to The Three Musketeers.
Daniel
No love for Gene Wolfe? Or the guy who really invented the genre, H. G. Wells?
Would also recommend Neal Asher (wide-screen all-action space operas, fun stuff) and Alastair Reynolds (somewhat higher-concept space operas, lots of cosmic concepts and general bogglement, still fun).
Gene Wolfe was mentioned a while back, I’m sure…
The first Deryni set (D.Rising, D.Checkmate & High D.) and the first Camber set (C. of Culdi, Saint C. & C. the Heretic) were the best, imo - the later ones not so good.
Her Adept series was quite fun. Not sure it would really be worth stocking…
< Looks at Khadaji 's username > I would never have guessed ! Personally, I reread the Matador series on a regular basis.
The Chalion books; a very good series. I like the theology; the five Gods are the Mother, the Father, the Daughter, the Son, and the Bastard.
Besides stuff already mentioned, here’s some stuff I like :
I like Tanya Huff; I recommend her ( mentioned ) Blood books, a vampire series, and her Summoning books; a very funny fantasy series. “Never tell Egyptian gods they remind you of cartoon characters.”
By Dennis Jones, I like The Stone and the Maiden and it’s sequal, the Mask of the Sorceress. A fantasy set on a world where the “Deep Magic” has been sealed away, it involves a genocidal war, led by an evil magician named Erkai the Chain who wants to unbind the great magics and become a “Thanaturge”.
I’d recommend Jane Lindskold and her Firekeeper series and the Athanor books. The first is a fantasy series about a young woman rescued and raised by sentient wolves as their agent in the human lands, and the Athanor books are about the secret existence of mythical creatures in the real world. A detail I like : Ragnarok isn’t a Norse prophecy; it’s the distorted legend of the greatest magical battle ever waged.
I like most things by Eric Flint, except his Philosophical Strangler books.
I like just about everything by Lawrence Watt-Evans, except his Worlds of Shadow trilogy; much too depressing.
More later, perhaps . . .
I loved this series and I think you were the person who recommended it to me. You’re swell.
How about some Jules Vern?
You might also care to look at John Brunner, Samuel Delany or Micheal Moorcroft.
On the lighter side you can try Tom Holt or Robert Rankin.
Seconded, but only if you spell it Jules Verne.
There’s something of a Verne renaissance going on now. A lot of books that have been out of print for ages are back in print now in paperback ( Kereban the Inflexible, Dick Sands, Captain Antifer). Some Verne works that have never been in print have, in the past decade, been published (Paris in Twentieth Century, and a musical Verne wrote uniting several of his major charactwers, like Captain Nemo), and translated (what purports to be the first full, unabridged English translation of The Mysterious Island just came out a couple of years ago. I picked up a new collection of Verne short story translations in Ireland a couple of years ago. Verne wrote a helluva lot more than most people know. And I’ll dispute that Wells was the real creator of science fiction – Verne more than qualifies for the title.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how much call there is for this stuff. It’s too unfamiliar to most readers (although if they see these brightly-colored books on the shelves, with the instantly recognizable name “Jules Verne” on them, they might be intrigued enough to pick them up), and, even in paperback, they’re a bit on the pricey side.
Also, most bookstores tend to stick both Verne and Wells (and Poe, for that matter) under “Classics” rather than “science fiction/fantasy.”
I’ll second this one. Did not realize the author is female, but that kinda explains certain things about the books I’ve read…
I’d thought she was a really bitter guy. Seems to make her main female characters the villian as often as not.
Thanks; after a search, it appears I did, in this thread where you asked for fantasy recommendations : Want epic fantasy, but. . . It seems relevant to the OP, so I added the link.
Many of my favorite authors have already been mentioned, and I don’t want to just say, “Me too.”
It’s hard to get much more literate than Joanna Russ, and there’s even an on line sample.
I think Sylvia Engdahl’s mother star trilogy is underrated, (even though I was disappointed in the third book, The Doors of the Universe) and it has been rereleased as one big book called Children of the Star.
How about Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series?
The last few books have been a bit drawn-out and it is hard to remember (11 books in) all of the details, but I still love the series!
There’s both Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker’s stuff. Barker always gets shelved under horror, but it’s much more fantasy nowadays. I’m really enjoying the Abarat series. Gaiman’s Stardust & Neverwhere are a must, and his connected* American Gods/Anansi Boys* novels.
Are you including kidlit/YA-ish stuff? I can’t recommend Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell’s The Edge Chronicles enough. A nice return to good illustration in books, and really good for adults too, I think (I don’t usually care about the distinction - I reread Wind in the Willows regularly). Warning - It’s a dark world they’ve created.
MrDibble, that last sounds very interesting. I’ll have to look for it!
The first recommendation makes me wonder whether this store has a graphic novel/comic book section. If so, make sure you keep Sandman in stock, and V for Vendetta and Watchmen are also highly recommended.
Daniel
We’ve got Spiderwick, Edge Chronicles et al in the kids’ section. Our kids fantasy is much better than the adult, even with me violently threatening people who don’t buy Robert McKinley and Kim Stanley Robinson.
I love all of you guys. Quite a bit of this I recognize- we’ve got Robert Rankin, Iain M. Banks, Gene Wolfe, several of Spider Robinson’s books, some of the Shattered Worlds stuff, most of WoT, some Asimov, a couple of the Dune knockoffs. So far my list looks like this:
A bunch of China Mieville, including Iron Council, which won something or other
Octavia Butler
R. A. Salvatore
Robert Wilson (Illuminatus, right?)
More Marion Zimmer Bradley
Robert Asprin (Phule series)
Must get Spindle’s End and The Hero and the Crown
A lot more Charles De Lint, especially The Little Country and the one about the painter. I liked those
Some Lois McMaster Bujold
Several Patricia McKillip
Tanya Huff’s Blood series is only available in several volume in one sets. I like them- I think we should get them all. And the Keeper series
A few Marion Zimmer Bradley. Specific recommentations? We’ve got the Avalon books, I think
Elizabeth Moon’s The Speed of Dark
Stephen Brust’s Taltos series
James Morrow’s Towing Jehovah because it sounds interesting
P. N. Elrod’s Vampire Files
Joanna Russ, because that section impressed me
More of the Recluce series
Lynn Flewelling’s Luck in the Dark, because I’m 200 pages in and it’s great
Sheri S. Tepper’s Beauty, A Plague of Angels, and Shadow’s End
Guy Gavriel Kay’s *A Song for Arbonne[/i ]and The Lions of Al-Rassan. We’ve had the Sarantium series- I’ll see about re-ordering
Greg Keyes’s The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone
More Mercedes Lackey
Ooh! Ooh! The Mirror of Her Dreams!
That’s so far. I’m working tonight, and I’ll tell my manager that he’s getting a big long list.
Verne and Wells go in fiction. So does Susanna Clarke and Audrey Niffenegger. I don’t understand that. I refuse to get the Xanth series- if we get it, I think it goes in the kids section.
Thank you all so much. This has been amazingly helpful.
We’ve got V for Vendetta. There’s a small but growing graphic novel section. Ooh! Ooh! Can I order the Firefly graphic novel? I’ll look up the isbn.
Yes, I like Mordant’s Need more than Thomas Covenant, personally. I think it’s just because I could root for the characters.