Okay, so I was asked who I considered the literary gems of science fiction. Read Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delaney, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, Stanislaw Lem (forget the movie and read Solaris). Thomas Disch, perhaps, or Dan Simmons. A lot of Roger Zelazny's work.

That's off the top of my head. There are many more that I'm leaving out, I know, but that should be enough to get someone started.