I'm surprised that Little, Big hasn't made this list as of yet. I can see how it might not appeal to everybody. It's about an invisible war between an unseen world and our own, it's a parable, it's...hell, I don't know what it is, and I've read it three times now. Just pick it up and read the first few pages. That's all it took for me. John Crowley is good at hiding far more than he reveals. His books are not escapist, because they are about being alive and human. One thing you might find refreshing in Little, Big: there are no people named Erowigon, Elowind, or Farondodil. There are no quests for the ArkinDongle. The Eldaar race never shows up. On the other hand, if you are looking for a clear catalog of different magicks, races, and the like, it's pretty slim to none in here. On a personal note (yawn)...the book's about wonder, and about losing it as we grow old, and about the possibility of rediscovering it, just maybe, when it seems lost forever. That's my take, and why I like the book so much. Oh, it's also about George and the case of 100-year-old Turkish hashish that he discovers in his basement. Talk about a fantasy. Speaking of drugs...they play a prominent role in Engine Summer. Read that one, too. It's sad and beautiful. The drugs in it are quite engineered. "Taking a Load Off"? Oh, some days that one would be very nice. I hope somebody else reads this one, just so I know that my wife and I aren't the only ones in the world...

I found New Sun series by complete accident, was totally repelled by the main character ( a professional of the torturer class? ), but I got over that and was rewarded by a bizarre, beautiful story. I mean, these people attend formal duels in which flowers are the weapon of choice! Something about Wolfe's style takes me back to the days when I read a ton of Heinlein. For me it's the strong paternal tone to the narrative. At times it grew tiresome, but the rewards of this series (and the other series that followed) more than made up for it. The guy has an astounding imagination, the sense of deep time in the books is real, the monsters are terrible, but even they are given a moral basis for their actions(especially in the Short Sun series).