Jeffrey Ford. Truly a master of the short story. I was enchanted by “The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant,” which I think was the first story of his I read, and I’ve gone on to enjoy many more. His collections from Golden Gryphon are wonderful, and I’m looking forward to his new collection, “The Drowned Life,” due out later this year.

Ted Chiang. He doesn’t write a lot, but everything he writes is golden. All novellas, novellettes and short stories, but just about every single one has been an award winner. “Hell Is the Absence of God” is an especiallly haunting story.

Sean Stewart. I wish he were still regularly writing fiction instead of (I think) video games and the like, because he’s a wonderful writer. There’s a scene in “Night Watch” that so vividly describes the cold that I nearly froze to death just reading it.

Gregory Frost. “Attack of the Jazz Giants” is an amazing collection of short stories, and his latest novel, “Shadowbridge,” is brilliantly imagined. I can’t wait to read the second half of it, “Lord Tophet.”

Felix Gilman shows great promise in his freshman effort, “Thunderer.” I hope he writes more books set in Ararat, because this city he’s created is fascinating — a city of gods, all going about their business independently, all with their own congregations, and all very real. I’m curious about the mountain where time and space seem to shift about, too. Much more to explore here.

Stephen King, my perennial. I don’t know how he does it. I’m convinced that he’ll be read centuries from now, just as we read Poe.

It would not be hard to go on for a long time — I, too, love Borges, Calvino, Mieville — and I’m not stepping outside of genre here, or I’d be talking about Millhauser, Atkinson, Austen, Atwood, Lessing, Lightman, and that’s before I even hit the mysteries. Too many books, too little time. As always.

I’ve become a bit of a Borges evangelist as well, and I’ve been telling everyone that will listen about Stefan Grabinski. The more people that are aware of him, the more chance that somebody will see a reason for more of his works to be translated and published in English, so I think there’s a special case to be made there. It’s one of the things I’d like to be involved in if I ever work in publishing.

Other than that, Saki. My girlfriend lent me a selection of his short stories, and I’ve been passing the word on ever since.

He’s got a new one coming out soon (may have already hit the stores, actually) that I read as an ARC. It’s pretty tightly tied into his other books, it seems, and I’m not sure how well it would go over with someone who’s never read anything else by him.

The authors I tend to push on people are Orson Scott Card (esp. Ender’s Game) and some much older stuff – Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Tolkien (yes, there are people who haven’t read him), Douglas Adams and Terri Pratchett. More recently, I’ve been enjoying Neil Gaiman as well, and have been pushing that a little too. I’d push George R. R. Martin, but the books are too huge for me to suggest them to a non-reader. They’re amazing, but they’re not terribly accessible.

For most of these, it’s the characters, the worlds, and the writing that sucks me in and makes me want to tell others. Ender’s Game speaks to me in so many ways, and I know so many people that would identify with Ender. The Giver is a really interesting world, especially to someone uninitiated in SF. Pratchett, while hilarious, also has some fascinating characters. And Gaiman’s writing style is easy to get into, his plotting is gripping, and his world’s are interesting (Airships in Stardust? Ancient, unknown cultures in Neverwhere? Yes, please).