Sawyer's "Calculating God" was the first book I would consider "real sci-fi" that I ever read, at around age 13 or so. A friend's older brother had recommended

Sawyer's "Calculating God" was the first book I would consider "real sci-fi" that I ever read, at around age 13 or so. A friend's older brother had recommended it to me and it blew my mind. It was, for me, the turning point from reading what I now recognize to be mostly trash (primarily very early 'Star Wars' expanded universe books) to instead looking for things that had real impact. Books that made me think. Not everything he's written has been as good, but I read whatever this man publishes- even blog posts about old text editors.