I'm loving the lists and nodding a lot. Feeling too stupid to add much. I'll weigh in for Short stories: McCaffrey's "The Ship Who Sang," Mieville's Novella "the Tain." and the stories in Looking for Jake, Stephenson, Gibson, Cadigan (Synners in particular), second Vinge's True Names, Greg Egan's Disaspora series... more after I sleep some.

Don't know if qualifies as classic but Doris Egan's Gate of Ivory series. She is now a TV/ writer producer.

You know who we've left out? Hal Clement! I loved Mission to Gravity when I was a teen.

Also Larry Niven's Ringworld, and probably Tales of Known Space. Oh, and The Mote in God's Eye, which he wrote with Jerry Pournelle. (BTW, Jerry Pournelle's daughter wrote a sequel to MiGE, which challenged/overthrew a lot of icky subtext in it. Came out just recently.)

Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage. John M. Ford's Growing up Weightless. Suzette Hayden Elgin's Native Tongue.

While not precisely classics, we can't leave out Lois McMaster Bujold. If you have been deprived, I'd say start with Cordelia: Shards of Honor and Barrayar.

I had a terrible crush on Poul Anderson's Captain Sir Dominic Flandry as a teenager.

Consuela has mentioned some great books. Mission of Gravity is often cited as one of the best books from an alien point of view. I must differ on The Mote in God's Eye, because of the supposedly brilliant female scientists who turns into a screaming idiot. Jerry Pournelle is in the running for "Most Sexist Author."

Did he ever write a Gor book?

RA Lafferty short stories. He was a huge influence on Neil Gaiman and was a fantastic writer who is also great fun to read. 900 Grandmothers is one of my favorite books, which I would definitely recommend you buy, except that I see it's scarily expensive on Amazon.

John Norman goes beyond sexism to some more disgusting category.

I hung out with R.A. Lafferty at a couple of World Cons. He was a funny man.

Does anybody really like reading Asimov?

Yes. I have read pretty much the entirety of the Foundation, Robots, and Empire series' (which all end up connecting, in the end) and though I don't necessarily think they are entirely wonderful, I certainly enjoyed them pretty much all the way through. I've read each of the short story collections I have by him at least 5 times each.

I find him to be extraordinarily readable and generally full of pretty fascinating ideas. And I think his work in short stories is often nothing short of amazing, with "The Bicentennial Man" and "The Ugly Little Boy" standing out particularly, though there are plenty of other wonderful examples.

I don't read for word choice or poetic phrasing most of the time, and in fact often find it distracting. Asimov gives good story, at least by my reckoning.

For Anderson "The Merman's Children" Anderson at his best.