'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.