[Blofeld]

China Mieville is my favourite amongst the contemporary writers. His Bas-Lag series is certaintly not run-of-the-mill Tolkienesque cliche, it's more in weird fiction vein, the books bristle with original ideas, races/cultures and takes on magic and ot technology.
The first book, 'Perdido Street Station' suffers a bit towards the end in plot and coherence departments, but he gets better in later books, 'The Scar' and 'Iron Council'