Okay, so....a confession.

In a fairly recent little-noticed comment, I let slip that I differ from many folks here in what some may regard as an important way: I was not raised on science fiction.

I'll be more specific here: I think I've seen one of the Star Wars films (the one about the kid who apparently grows up to become the villain in the other films). I have enough cursory familiarity with the Star Trek franchise to be able to use phrases like "Spock bias" and make the occasional reference to the Starship Enterprise (except I later found out that the reference in that post was wrong, since the Enterprise is actually supposed to travel faster than light -- oops), but little more. I recall having enjoyed the "Tripod" series, and maybe one or two other, similar books, when they were read aloud to me in elementary school. And of course I like Yudkowsky's parables, including "Three Worlds Collide", as much as the next LW reader.

But that's about the extent of my personal acquaintance with the genre.

Now, people keep telling me that I should read more science fiction; in fact, they're often quite surprised that I haven't. So maybe, while we're doing these New Year's Resolutions, I can "resolve" to perhaps, maybe, some time, actually do that (if I can ever manage to squeeze it in between actually doing work and procrastinating on the Internet).

Problem is, there seems to be a lot of it out there. How would a newcomer know where to start?

Well, what better place to ask than here, a place where many would cite this type of literature as formative with respect to developing their saner-and-more-interesting-than-average worldviews?

Alicorn recommended John Scalzi (thanks). What say others?