"The Best of Gene Wolfe"

You figure your way out through a Gene Wolfe story a world-building sentence at a time. His favorite trick is to drop you in a What-If world and set you loose to figure out exactly WHAT is the What-If. The 31 stories in "The Best of Gene Wolfe" are very very good, and if the term SF conjures spaceships and Darth Vader, and you find that nauseauting, look up Wolfe immediately. He's of the old literary school, closer to Kypling, Wells, Chesterton and Melville than he is to Robert Heinlein. As for range? You'll find it here. Very very recommended.

All right, so he's not a hottie. But that ovoid head contains universes that you shouldn't miss out on.