Half of this thread to be honest. Asimov and Dick, Stephenson and Gibson. I never liked Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett but I've read their books trying to understand the hype.

It was after failing to get engaged by the three-body problem (again), frustrated, and recognizing that I was dealing with unusually high professional and personal stress which likely robbed me of focus for reading "good" fiction, that I went looking for lighter fare and found this series. The author apparently was a ghost writer for the original star wars series. It doesn't surprise me a bit.

$0.02 :)