The Dying Earth

A few additional thoughts based on the comments here: If you liked "In Conquest Born" - Friedman wrote These Alien Shores, which is a true hacker sci fi, absolutely incredible. The Book of Skaith by Leigh Bracket is a truely awesome compilation of the three Skaith novels. Leigh helped write the initial Empire Strikes back! Almost anything by Jack Vance will be good. If you've read The Dying Earth, George RR Martin just produced a tribute called Songs of the Dying Earth with some of the best Sci Fi writers contributing.

Snow Crash is great. Generally I'd recommend some "classics", just to see who treaded some ground first, i.e. who gets copied by everyone. Isaac Asimov - Foundation (and the rest of the trilogy) Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land / Starship Troopers / The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man / The Stars My Destination Jack Vance - The Dying Earth Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep / The Man in the High Castle Larry Niven - Ringworld etc. etc. A list of Hugo Award winners[1] might come in helpful. Another advantage of having read "the greats" is that if some critic says that new author X writes "in the style of Y" you have a slightly better idea if you might like it. Tastes vary, of course. Personally I never got what's supposed to be so great about Ender's Game. Teen Mary Sue geek power fantasy with questionable morals. Then again, lots of people said similar things about Heinlein… [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel