@sciencefiction I love Jeff Vandermeer, China Mieville, Neal Stephenson, Delaney and Wolfe. Would love some recs from the last 10 years or so (I’ve only read expanse + cixin liu recently).
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.
I’m pretty used to jumping right into new, strange worlds so I rarely get lost, but The Quantum Thief was extraordinarily complex, in a good way. And you could trace ideas in it back to tech in use now. Highly rec the book.
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.
@kat_angstrom will pick this up, thanks! Was planning to do Hyperion as well on the side!
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).
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.
Not enough people have heard of and read The Quantum Magician so I will continue to recommend it. It’s quite the wild ride.
