it may also explain a certain... obsession?.. with sacrifices?

Ha Ha Ha
I was trying to pay you a compliment! :P You know my avatar is a cthluhu right?
There isn't much in the way of sacrificing in Lovecraft. Lot of killing and eating and disembowlment, but not sacrifice in the traditional Aztec manner.

I couldn't help but notice the glaring lack of Iain [M.] Banks recommendations in this thread. I think I'll go with Use of Weapons.

Also, nothing in here by Kurt Vonnegut? Umberto Eco? Haruki Murakami? Oh boy.

Portal: A Dataspace Retrieval

Originally an interactive novel published in 1986, published as hardcover two years later, as a softcover in 2001, and licensed for free under Creative Commons (non-commercial, no-derivatives) as an ebook in 2009, and most recently run through two unfunded Kickstarter projects in 2012 for a remake of the original interactive novel. Link to ebook above.

Regardless of its history, I did enjoy reading it.

Of course Thuler Spawn :P

I still havent read the last chronicles, I'm waiting for the series to finish, because I still remember how long I had to wait for White Gold Wielder lol.

Nice to know others here have read the books too :)

Same here. ;)

You guys are awesome! Thanks for the recommendations :)

May I suggest Q, by the Italian bunch of novelists (they are four) Wu Ming (Luther Blisset, when they wrote the first book). It's freely downloadable (Creative Commons 2.5), and translated in many languages (Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish).
It's an historic novel, settled on XVI century. It starts from the 95 theses nailed by Luther on the door of the Wittenberg Church and ends with the "cuius regio, eius religio" of the Peace of Augsburg, looking for the "fil rouge" of the whole religious reform.
History is all there, there are only a bunch of fictional characters (the protagonist, a nameless hero who joins and loses every utopian cause, and the antagonist, a Machiavellian figure on the payroll of the future pope Carafa).

It's a strange equilibrium between theology and cowboys, filled with ultra-violence and a very good insight on history.

I suggest to download, start reading and, if you like it, buy or donate a few bucks to those novelists. They deserve it.

Third series? First I heard about that one. I have to start paying more attention to those things... I'll have a good read of the thread later.

Yeah mate he only started it a couple of years ago, afaik he has three out and the last is in production. I think they are based on TC's wife as opposed to TC himself, but I havent read them yet, I have bought them in large format as they came out, they were about €18 each, but you can get them in standard format now.

A few that comes to my mind:

Walter M. Miller Jr.: A Canticle for Leibowitz
G.G. Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon
John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces
Stanisław Lem: The Cyberiad
Karel Čapek: War with the Newts

I like the way you think, sir! Very good suggestions there. I'll toss in a sci-fi based series that I feel is a must-read:

the Chanur series by C.J. Cherryh: Pride of Chanur, Chanur's Venture, The Kif Strike Back, Chanur's Homecoming, and Chanur's Legacy (athe last isn't all that great, IMO, but the series is still brilliant).

Oh, and some more suggestions:

David Weber's Honor Harrington books (sort of like Horatio Hornblower in space)
Jack Whyte's Dream of Eagles series (a retelling of the Arthurian legend, except no magic and told as if it could have really occurred)
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series
Robin Hobbs' Farseer Trilogy
Iain M. Banks: anything by him, but especially his Culture novels.

Non Fiction:

Wade Davis' Into the Silence (the story of the first attempts to climb Mount Everest). Fantastic book.

Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy (the first two books are An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle). A chronicle of the US Army's war in Europe in WWII. Excellent read and a very fair treatment (he doesn't gloss over anything and doesn't try to glorify the US). The third book, The Guns at Last Light is due out in May.

Haven't heard of alot of those, so I'll keep an eye out for them, definately recommend the Honor books as well :)