Ramblings of an itinerant rocket scientist...

Happy anniversary to patgreene and I! We've survived kids, moves, exploring relationships, financial crises, kids with head lice, 2am feedings, hospitalizations, IEPs, graduations, awards, overseas travel and long languid gazes... and still love and hold each other. Go us. :-)

'Tis the time of year when I do most of my reading of fiction... in airports, on planes, waiting for weather to clear, in tents... and most of the SF authors I used to read are inactive (Cherryh, Bujold, Silverberg) doing other things/genres (Scalzi, Bear) or I've read everything already (Weber, Willis, Flint, Turtledove). Sometimes in the past I've just blindly picked things off of recent Hugo/Nebula nomination lists (Windup Girl) but that's not reliable either. I'm not much for swords&sorcery-type-fantasy or Neuromancer/SnowCrash-style dystopic future fiction (which is why Windup Girl is taking me 9 months to finish, and I've not even attempted Cryptonomicon).

Given all that... anyone have any recommendations? Who would be today's Asimov or Cherryh or Bova? Any alternate-history series that fit together? I haven't found a book-I-couldn't-put-down in quite a while... thanks for any ideas.