Robert Aickman, Cold Hand in Mine & The Wine Dark Sea were key to my emerging aesthetic of both SF and fantasy. Tolkien, The Hobbit. Another book I spent a long time analyzing, especially the riddles in the dark chapter, to understand how it worked. /3
Gwyneth Jones, Kairos, for what kinds of worlds SF could build. Jack Womack, Terraplane, for how worlds could be built at the sentence level. (I used to teach the opening page when I taught writing.) /4
Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire, for what life after brain surgery could be like. (As someone who became very much a neophile after surgery, I identify with the protagonist.) I may add to the list as I think of more.
I keep going back to Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather bc we keep approaching his world of "Armada Storms." Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age accurately describes where income inequality and insane personal tech are taking us. The Algebraist the only Iain Banks book I still really like. Sooo weird.
Alastair Reynolds' "Pushing Ice" is one of the few Sci Fis I've read that passes a literary version of "The Bechdel Test" -- two female main characters not only talk to each other about something other than men, but have a dispute regarding high tech with unintended consequences, among other things.
I remember reading Sterling's Heavy Weather and John Barnes' Mother of Storms when they were new (both came out in 1994). At the time I preferred Barnes' more visionary take on global warming/climate change, but when rereading both years later I preferred Sterling's more down-to-earth approach.
A few additions: James Morrow, This is the Way the World Ends. I wrote a very long essay about it when we wrestle founding NYRSF and the essay helped me clarify what I wanted from science fiction. Also, for early influences, Zenna Henderson. Surprised no one has mentioned Henderson's The People.
If I list the SF that has affected my life... well, it would become a biography. I also couldn't just stop at five. And thanks for mentioning Zenna Henderson's The People - that's one of the books I'd have to mention.
Don't remember if I read Henderson's stories, but the TV movie made an impression. Shame that it's not available on disc.
I have read far more science fiction in my life than any sane person should and burned out my brain doing to Year's Best volumes a year for a decade.
The Amabel Williams-Ellis & Mably Owen "Out of this world" series of anthologies probably got this moose hooked at an early age, followed by Hugh Walters and Philip E. High, then the usual suspects: Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov. Today it's more like Pratchett, Bujold, Stross, Kritzer &Addison. 3:O)>
The most embarrassing book that had a huge impact on me at the time I read it was Bram Stoker's Jewel of Seven Stars which I read and reread in the 6th grade. Shortly thereafter, the King Tut exhibition came to town. /1
I was deeply disappointed at the distance between the actuality of ancient Egypt and Stoker's portrayal. No 7-fingered Egyptian priestesses & murderous mummy cats who might well come back to like. I got over my disappointment & tried to learn hieroglyphics anyway. /2
Similarly, a book that changed David Hartwell's life was Tom Swift & His Television Detector. It was, as I recall the story, the first science fiction he read. /3
doing to=>doing two