I understand the books have been optioned to be made into movies by the Jim Henson Studios. Here's hoping they don't screw them up.

Suggested Reading: The Dark is Rising Series, naturally enough: The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree. There is another book in the series, Over Sea, Under Stone, and it's actually the first of the series, but I've always found it the weakest of the series, and I found that not reading it doesn't detract over much from enjoying the rest of the series. I suggest reading The Dark is Rising first, to get a grip on the tone of the series, and then reading Over Sea later. Don't let the fact they are juvenile fiction stop you — they really are worth the read no matter what your age.

Those are the biggies — here's some quick notes on some of my other favorites.

David Brin: Brin is hit-and-miss with me, but when he hits, he makes an impression. Earth, his novel of the near-future (in which intrepid scientists fight against a black hole that has sunk into the center of the Earth) is his best work in my eyes — a detailed and well-wrought vision of a world on the brink, not so different from ours (Brin also gets credit for nailing the concept of hyperlinks a few years before they actually showed up). Brin's Uplift Trilogies are so-so for me; I have to really work to get into them. The Uplift War is the one novel in the series that works best for me; the rest are ehhh in my book. I feel sorry for him about his novel The Postman, the movie version of which got the worst reviews of 1997. Fortunately for him, no one seems to blame him for it.

Neal Stephenson: The most readable author in the cyberpunk movement, mostly because he's got a hell of a sense of humor, and an ear for dialogue and hip description: the first couple chapters of Snow Crash, his (deservedly) most-acclaimed novel, are some of the best, funniest science fiction you'll read. What Stephenson has not managed to do to date, however, is come up with a serviceable close to his books; in Snow Crash and The Diamond Age (there's a third book, Zodiac — actually his first published — which I have not read), he creates these wonderful, funny, vivid worlds, and then doesn't know how to wrap them up. It's frustrating. Still, better half a loaf than none — I still have more fun reading him than just about anyone else.

Steven Brust: Brust dabbles primarily in fantasy — his best known work is the Taltos Series, in which short-lived humans live alongside Dragereans, who live for thousands of years— and what I like about his work is his light hand with the dialogue and the humor. I've never been one for the somber, heavy-handed mumblings that come out of the mouths of most fantasy characters (the ones that aren't blatantly spoofy, that is — which is just as bad), so the fact that Brust's Vlad Taltos is recognizably contemporary within his fantasy world structure is a breath of fresh air.

Allen Steele: Steele's work gets a lot of comparisons with early Heinlein, and in work like Orbital Decay and Clarke County USA, it's easy to see why — both feature can-do folks in a mechanistic future (which is to say, one where people do more work with their hands than with computers), with some high-minded ideals thrown in for fun. I won't insult Steele by saying his work isn't original — but I will say that yes, I do read him for the same elements I find in Heinlein's stuff. I figure that's a compliment.

Ray Bradbury: The best fantasist to work in science fiction — or is it the best science fiction writer to work in fantasy? Either way, in a hundred years or so, I expect Bradbury's best work — The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, and especially Something Wicked This Way Comes — will allow him to be favorably compared to folks like Edgar Allen Poe (don't laugh. No one thought Poe was really all that while he was alive). What I've read of his most recent work doesn't do all that much for me — a similar situation to how I felt about Heinlein's later work — but that certainly doesn't take away from what he's accomplished over the length of his career.

Mark Helprin: Helprin is not generally regarded as a fantasy writer; he's more of a mainstream literary fiction writer. But every person who loves fantasy owes it to him or herself to seek out his book Winter's Tale. It is — bar none — the best fantasy book I've ever read, an alternate history of New York that is both breathtaking in scope and in the sheer, unalloyed quality of Helprin's writing. One of Helprin's book jacket blurbs reads "Helprin writes like an angel." It's probably the only time such gross hyperbole is actually close to the truth. Great writing. Get it.

Neil Gaiman: Alan Moore and Frank Miller get credit for getting comic books to be thought of as anything more than kids stuff (here in the US, at least; they don't have as many hangups about illustrated work other places), but for my money it's Neil Gaiman's Sandman series that shows that not only can comic book writing hang with the best fantasy work out there — it can be the best fantasy work out there. Over seventy-five issues of the comic book, Gaiman followed the character of Dream (the immortal character Cure lead singer Robert Smith always wished he could be) through adventures in this world, Hell, and beyond. Outside of some token bows to the DC comics universe near the beginning of the series, the series is wholly original stuff, fabulous in the literal sense, and occasionally more chilling (and more thought-provoking) than anything else out there. Best of all, Gaiman had the good sense to close the series while it was still strong. Smart man. If you've never thought of a comic book as being quality writing, this is the work to change your mind.

When he's not writing about Hollywood agents and space aliens, John Scalzi is a freelance writer, critic and columnist. John's first full time writing job came in 1991, when he was hired on graduation from the University of Chicago to become the film critic for the Fresno Bee newspaper in California. In 1994, he also became a humor columnist for the Bee. Both his reviews and columns were nationally syndicated.

In 1996, John left the Bee to join AOL as the company's first full time writer and editor. He stayed there through March 1998, when he left the company and began his life of freelance fun. Currently this includes being the National Music Writer for MediaOne Express (where he also is a featured humor columnist), and writing the occasional column for the Washington Post.

John lives in Sterling, Virginia, with his wife Kristine, daughter Athena Marie, dog Kodi, and cat Rex. He's thinking about writing another novel sometime reasonably soon.