Science Fiction

I loved Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Final Architecture" trilogy, starting with "Shards of Earth". I've really enjoyed Tchaikovsky the last couple years, "Children of Time" is magnificent, "Cage of Souls" was cool weirdness; but "Shards of Earth" was like a Firefly/Expanse-inspired story set in a Culture style universe, definitely my favorite of his books that I've read so far. Even acting as book one in a trilogy, it's ending was satisfying enough that I'd still have loved it without reading books 2 or 3.

I agree with all the recommendations so far (Banks, Tchaikovsky, etc.) but would like to add Hannu Rajaniemi, namely the trilogy beginning with “The Quantum Thief”, which blew my mind.

For starters, definitely read Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson. So good.

And The Peripheral by William Gibson, although I wasn't a huge fan of the follow-up novel called Agency.

Also, A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine should be on your to-read pile if you liked The Expanse, I think.

Oh yeah, and so far I think my favorite book of 2023 has been Cory Doctorow's Red Team Blues. It's a super fast read and a lot of fun if you're at all into computer security. Very unlikely hero too—a retirement age forensic accountant living out of a rock star bus, traveling the US in search of good wine and good food, haha.

Martha Wells' Murderbot series, starts with All Systems Red Anne Leckie's Ancillary Justice series Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee Tamsyn Muir's Gideon The Ninth (lesbian necromancers in spaaaace!) JB's The Cruel Stars And file under older but still great: Jon Courtney-Grimwood's Arabesk series, cyberpunk alt history set in Alexandria, starting with Pashazde The Laundry Files by Charles Stross (actually spy / horror) starting with The Atrocity Archives A short story, Down On The Farm, set in the same universe is free to read here

Hail Mary Project!

I recently read the Bobiverse books, and those were quite fun.

Daniel Suarez is another good one (start with Daemon), as is Ian McDonald (Dervish House, the Luna series).

The Borne books (Borne, A Strange Bird and Dead Astronauts) by Vandeemeer were so great too. Like the exact opposite tone and energy of The Southern Reach Trilogy but so rich and rewarding!

K. B. Wagers is a great author. I started with Behind the Throne and read the whole Indranan War series. Next trilogy was the Farian War. Haven't read past those although I want to! Her new stuff looks interesting.

I also really like N. K. Jemisin. My favorite is the Dreamblood series.

Not enough people have heard of and read The Quantum Magician so I will continue to recommend it. It's quite the wild ride.

The Quantum Magician