I liked Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game". It's a neat story about gaming in a futuristic world in which aliens are trying to exterminate earthlings. It has seem neat implications about how we judge other people. And it has a rather harsh look at the military.
I love the Lord of the Rings books. I also really enjoy Christopher Paolini's books, Eragon and Eldest. I am going crazy waiting for the last book to come out. Paolini was a teenager when he wrote the first book. Amazing!
I'm not usually a science fiction fan, but I, too, loved Ender's Game. Orson Scott Card is one of the few sci-fi writers who does excellent characterizations as well as plot, and that's what matters to me.