Comment I keep a list :) (Score 1) 175
I try to update this regularly.
* The Hyperion series by Dan Simmons is AMAZING. I think my favorite.
* The Martian by Andy Wier. MacGyver on Mars. What's not to love? Actually pretty technically accurate, near-future Mars mission goes bad, one crew member is left for dead and stranded.
* Peter Watts writes some good hard scifi...the Rifters series is pretty awesome, dealing with psychologically damaged people whose trauma makes them adapted for deep-sea work, and Blindsight, which has a crew led by a genetically resurrected vampire on a spacecraft off to visit a recently detected distant object. I wasn’t so much a fan of the follow-up to Blindsight though (Echopraxia).
* Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan is some great cyberpunk noir. There are two more books with the same main character (Broken Angels and Woken Furies) but I think the first one is the best.
* The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. British humor/Lovecraftian horror. The main character is a systems administrator/necromancer for a secret British government agency that deals with the nightmares beyond reality.
* Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise, also by Charles Stross, but these are hard scifi rather than comedy/horror.
* Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Not scifi, urban fantasy, but fun reads.
* William Gibson pretty much defines cyberpunk...Neuromancer, and the Sprawl trilogy are pretty much required reading.
* Then if William Gibson didn't take himself so seriously, you would get Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson. The main character is named Hiro Protagonist...yeah, it gets sillier from there. But it's a fantastic read, one of my favorites. Also: Diamond Age (nanotechnology future), Cryptonomicon (contemporary treasure hunt/crypto/startup), Seveneves (near future apocalypse)
* Mira Grant's Feed series, because who doesn't love zombies. Avoid the Parasitology series though, gargantuan plot holes I couldn’t get past.
* The Zones of Thought books by Vernor Vinge are darn good. A Deepness in the Sky, and A Fire Upon the Deep. Same universe, different storylines and characters though.
* Eon by Greg Bear is good. Starts out vaguely Rama-esque, but changes up quite a bit shortly in.
* Foundation series by Asimov, classics. Also I, Robot (just pretend the movie didn’t happen)
* Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is a subversive YA novel that I couldn't tear myself away from and read in a single sitting. Also see the sequel, Homeland.
* Along the subversive vein, Daemon and Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez.
* Pretty much anything from Philip K. Dick. He wrote about insanity quite well, because he himself was crazy.
* Peter F. Hamilton writes some pretty fluffy space opera stuff, it's fun if you don't look at it too deeply.
* Space Eldritch and Space Eldritch II are collections of short Lovecraftian scifi horror stories. Some GREAT stuff in there. I wish a few of them were fleshed out into full novels or series.
* Signal To Noise and A Signal Shattered by Eric S. Nylund, nice hard scifi.
* Kiln People by David Brin, interesting thoughts about continuity of self by copying your consciousness into 24-hour expiring clay golems and downloading their memories back to your real body after.
* Dune (Frank Herbert). Far-future scifi wrapped around a deep core of political intrigue.
* The Expanse series (James S.A. Corey), some good conspiracy-driven space opera that actually mostly pays attention to physics.