Ridley Scott was going to do it in the 1990s with Schwarzenegger

Which is almost as bad, but not quite.

I mean, Will Fuckin' Smith!

I'm actually really looking forward to that film...I'll get me coat?

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Di...nevermind

I did enjoy Altered Carbon, but I'd have to say Broken Angels is definitely my favourite of the series.

As far as SF reccomendations go, I'd have to say check out some David Drake. He's most well known for military-themed SF, and you might want to start with Grimmer than Hell or The Butchers Bill (a good introduction to the Hammer's Slammers series), but the first book I'd read of his was a collection of comedic stories called All the Way to the Gallows.

Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned Greg Egan yet. If you like hard SF and/or 'cyberpunk' type stories, he will blow your face off.

I'd recommend Axiomatic, Quarantine, or Luminous.

And Greg Bear is great... he goes from heavy SF, goes into Stephen King territory, has some fantasy-type stuff... it's super. If you ever read Hegira... you don't really know what 'type' of book you're reading until it's almost over :p

...And if you like things like Star Wars... and space-fantasy garbage type stuff... I've recently been sucked into reading Warhammer books, starting with the Gaunt's Ghosts series. The whole Warhammer universe is a big mashup of every other major science fiction property, like Dune, the Foundation books, Star Wars, Starship Troopers, the stories of HP Lovecraft, Aliens, and whatnot. Gaunt's Ghosts is World War 2 in space against evil posessed cults. The Horus Heresy books are also kind of fun to read so far.

Carl Sagan anyone?

Will Fuckin' Smith. I mean really.

Neal Stephenson rocks. Crytonomicon is also good. He also wrote a pretty interesting non-fiction book about user interfaces called In The Beginning... Was The Command Line.

R.U. Sirius and St. Jude of Mondo 2000 fame wrote an exploded post-novel / e-mail epistolary called How to Mutate and Take Over the World. I should finish reading it, but I was disappointed when I discovered it did not have the instructions I was looking for.

i just ordered altered carbon today. i can't wait to read it!

Childhood's End -Arthur C Clarke