Science Fiction @lemmy.world The Bard in Green @lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 10mo ago

I'm REALLY well read and I have a hard time finding new books to read. I need an audiobook for train ride->plane flight->bus ride tomorrow. Please halp!

I have read a TON of contemporary SciFi authors. I really enjoy

Stuff I like

Iain M. Banks

I liked the Martha Wells Murderbot books.

I loved We Are Legion, We Are Bob and have read all the books by him.

I like Alastair Reynolds. I liked the Poseidon's Children trilogy better than Revalation Space Series (but I liked that too).

I really like G. S. Jennsen - even though she's cheesy. I think I like her because of her progressive attitude and powerful female characters.

I like Charles Stross, but I didn't like Accelerando. I like his other books a lot.

I liked A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine.

I like Corey Doctorow, sometimes. Walkaway was good.

I like Daniel Suarez, most of the time for similar reasons.

I REALLY liked the Nexus series by Ramez Naam.

I liked the Red Rising books by Pierce Brown and I've really been enjoying the Sollan Empire books by Christopher Ruocchio, which I think are similar and even better.

I like Adrian Tchaikovsky and really liked The Final Architecture books and Doorways to Eden.(I didn't get that into Children of Time though).

I usually like Neil Stephenson. (The Fall or Dodge In Hell is quite a tedious book).

I've liked everything I've read by Verner Vinge.

I liked Hyperion like everybody else. Unlike everybody else, I think I liked the Endymion books even better.

I read some Ken MacLeod (the first Corporation Wars book) and it was fine... but I haven't felt like going back.

I REALLY enjoy John Scalzi, though I found the Old Man's War books started to get stale after a while. It's high calorie, low nutrition brain candy, but I know that going in and it passes the time.

I really liked Derek Kunsken's Quantum Magician books. And started reading his prequel series, set on Venus, and I couldn't really get into it.

I enjoy Space Race books like Erik Flint / Ryk Spoor's Boundary series, Saturn Run by John Sanford and Delta V by Daniel Suarez.

I love the Expanse.

I find Kim Stanley Robinson hit or miss. I really enjoyed the Mars books and The Years of Rice and Salt was fun (though a little tedious). 2312 drags and drags and nothing happens and Aurora is the same AND also sad.

I liked Permanence by Karl Schroeder. It could have used a little more... conflict? I had this same problem with Becky Chambers. The characters are all too well intentioned and the dramatic tension suffered a little.

I read all the Star Kingdom books by Lindsay Buroker. I thought they were a super fun adventure that just kept delivering from the beginning of the series to the end, even if it was clearly aimed at a more YA demographic.

I REALLY liked Velocity Weapon and the sequels by Megan O'Keefe. I found her Steam Punk series much less impressive. I've been meaning to try her galactic empire series, but I haven't quite been in the mood to start it.

I read Sue Burke's Semiosis Duology. I wasn't expecting to like it but I really did! The physical science aspects were a little softer than I would have liked, but the biological science was really cool, as was the anarcho-pacifist political philosophy.

I read Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit and the sequels. I thought they were really fun, I wish they'd explored Calendrical technology more.

I thought the Neo G books by KB Wagers (A Pale Light in the Black and sequels) were good. Her characters are great. But again, very light on the sciences and technology. I'm in the mood for something harder. Also, not realistic that the champion hand to hand fighter in the entire Earth space military is a 110 pound woman, but I just pretended she's cyber enhanced.

I just finished the Wormwood trilogy (Rosewater and sequels) by Tade Thomson. They were great.

Stuff I Don't Like

Orson Scott Card did not age well, unlike Timothy Zahn, who's gotten a lot more progressive in his story telling in the last two decades.

I don't like Niel Asher. His in your face Libertarianism and conservative ideology annoys me, which is too bad because other than that he's a good story teller.

I find Peter F. Hamilton hit or miss for the same reason. But I really liked Pandora's Star.

I find AG Riddle hit or miss. I like his thought experiments, but he doesn't really care if his stories / characters are logically consistent. Ramez Naam and Daniel Suarez do what Riddle does but WAAAY better.

I didn't like Blindsight. I know, this makes me some kind of heretic. I just didn't find the idea of such a dysfunctional crew being entrusted with such an important mission believable.

I couldn't get into Ann Leckie. I WANTED to like it, but I just didn't find her writing very engaging. I've put the physical book down once AND turned the audio book off on a road trip.

I did not like Tamsyn Muir.

I did not like the Three Body Problem, although I see the appeal and it's nice to read something by a non western author. I found the pro Chinese politics a little too heavy handed.

I cannot get into Greg Egan. I find his writing style way too obtuse. Reading is Egan is like having a PHD in mathematics and a PHD in quantum physics, then going to Burning Man and doing 16 hits of acid.

I finally got around to trying The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and I could NOT get into it. I agree with reviewers who complain nothing interesting ever happens.

People keep recommending Mary Robinette Kowal, but something about the alternate history just doesn't grab me.

People keep recommending Ted Chiang. But I don't want short stories (Murderbot somehow managed to be an exception). The longer the better.

People have recommended the Last Watch by J. S. Dewes, but others have told me things about the book that makes me think I won't like it. Standing guard at the edge of the universe makes zero sense, I think by proposing it's possible you lost me. Edge of the galaxy... Maybe, with 10 septillion robotic war ships. But edge of the universe? I think I'm out. If you know something I don't about this book, feel free to say so.

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110 comments

I got you comrade.

Luna: New Moon by Iain McDonald. It's most often described as "Game of Thrones in space", which does convey the general tone of warring families well enough. But to a sci-fi fan, a better description would be "A deconstruction of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." McDonald basically tears apart the libertarian politics of Heinlein's book by imagining what a purely libertarian society would actually look like; the conclusion being, it would be fundamentally feudal. Hence, the Game of Thrones style politics of warring great houses / corporations.

What makes the books a worthy recommendation though is that they're just incredibly well written. As well as constantly interrogating social and political questions, they're note perfect character studies, with a huge cast of characters, every one of whom is richly drawn with layers upon layers of depth and complexity. It's the kind of book where it's hard to even figure out who the "villains" are because every characters' worldview, intentions and desires are so well thought through. Instead you simply have a group of believable human beings cast into a complex situation, as the reader watches conflict inevitably arise from their differing goals and intentions.

And if all of that sounds very dry, the remarkable part is that it really isn't. McDonald has plenty of fun with his premise, giving us a world of genetically engineered assassin flies, combat drones, dust bikers, werewolves, free-running water thieves, PhD ninjas, courtroom duels, and giant dicks drawn in lunar regolith.

(Yes, I am basically now just the guy who recommends this one book series every time, but I'm gonna keep doing it until more people know about it, because they're just that damn good).
- You sold that really well! Thank you.
A lot of sci Fi fans also get on well with Terry Pratchett. The audio books are really good, although I prefer Stephen Briggs who did the 2nd half to Nigel Planer. You can't go wrong with Going Postal, it doesn't rely on much from the earlier books, or Men at Arms if you wanted an earlier book in the discworld series.

If you wanted to stick to sci-fi, The Stars my Destination is one of my favorites, it's a modern count of Monte Cristo. Speaker for the dead is also one of my favorites, the sequel to enders game.
- I agree the Stephen Briggs and Nigel Planer audio versions of Discworld are very good, but the newer ones with Colin Morgan/Indira Varma/Sian Clifford, Peter Serafinowicz and Bill Nighy are over the top good. I generally steer clear of "full cast narration" but this isn't that at all. Colin, Indira or Sian do the main narration, depending on if it's a Witches book (Indira), Death book (Sian) or Wizard, etc. book (Colin), the author's asides are Bill Nighy and Death is Peter Serafinowicz who absolutely nails the role.
  
  Also- Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad series is technically (very soft) sci-fi.
I align very much with your tastes, here are some you didn’t mention that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Frontlines by Marlo Kloos. Military Sci-Fi, IMO better than both Old Man’s War and Expeditionary Force

Palladium Wars, also by Kloos. More good military sci-fi

Frost Files by Jackson Ford. Rollicking good time.

Doors of Sleep by Tim Pratt. Superb portal sci-fi/fantasy. Skip the follow up.

Mickey7 series by Edward Ashton. Clone hijinks.

The Passage by Justin Cronin. Post apocalyptic sci-fi vampires.

14 by Peter Clines. I don’t want to say anything more than sci-fi apartment building. Give it a try.
- Thank you! This is exactly the kind of response I was looking for!
  
  14 is a page turner, perfect for traveling
  
  The passage I had recommended to me by a friend who reviews books for a well known paper. It's very well written and I also recommend the entire trilogy.
Andy Weir
- I'm half way through the Martian from like a year and a half ago. I forgot it's in my Audible. I could restart it. If I don't finish something, there's usually a reason and I don't often go back. But I don't remember why I switched away.
  
  Project Hail Mary is really good
  
  Artemis is fun too
Sorry, not much help as you've read more widely than me, but you like the stuff I like and don't like stuff that I don't like, so you've given me a lot of books to add to my list :)
I didn't see you mention these authors, but maybe because your cutoff date looks to be around 1989:

Wild Seed- Octavia E Butler

The Left Hand of Darkness- Ursula K LeGuin

Dhalgren- Samuel Delaney

Book of the New Sun- Gene Wolfe

A Scanner Darkly- Philip K Dick

Cat's Cradle- Kurt Vonnegut

Not exactly always considered sci fi, but maybe sci fi adjacent:

The Terror- Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, seems to be free of his politics

The Yiddish Policemen's Union- Michael Chabon

Gravity's Rainbow- Thomas Pynchon

Fictions- Jorge Luis Borges

Machine of Death- collection of short stories from various authors

Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
Have you read the Foundation series yet? I found the first book (chronologically written, not the universe timeline) a challenge to follow initially, but once I got into Asimov’s style I found the whole series quite enjoyable.
- I just re read Foundation and it was better that I remembered. Heinlein and Asimov were going to be my recommendation. I Robot and the Caves of Steel books were great. Heinlein's earlier works are so much fun. Have Spacesuit, Will Travel was the first scifi I ever read. Podkayne of Mars, Citizen of the Galaxy, all the pulp serial releases I love. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of my favorites. Stranger in a Strange Land was his last book that I really enjoyed, then he got weird and creepy. Time enough for love was just... Just no
I'll recommend David Wong's Zoey Ashe books, similar to Scalzi in style, and I would say similar to Snow Crash in world build, but way less formal. Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits was terrific. Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick less so but still grand. And now I see a third one that escaped my attention and I'll have to get on my phone for this week's travels.

His John Dies at the End series is also incredible, but not quite the scifi you're looking for. More Buffy/Supernatural style, well, in a Trey Parker/Matt Stone vein of Buffy, lots of dildo jokes.

And though it's not scifi I'll recommend the Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch. Oceans 11 conmen caper in a LOTR world with dialogue by Quentin Tarantino. I recommend it to everyone, whenever I am given an opportunity.

Edit: And Peter Clines Threshold and EX series are both great. EX is a superhero spin on zombies, and threshold is a nice scifi-eldritch romp.
Bobiverse - I've just consumed these non stop worth the read. Expeditionary force - its 15 books !

For something outside your comfort zone but we'll worh it Dunfeon Crawler Carl
- Bobiverse - It's up there on my list. I've also read Taylor's other work.
  
  Expeditionary Force - I started it... it would make a better Amazon Prime / Netflix series than book series.
  
  Dungeon Crawler Carl - WTF?! Lol, how did I not know this exists! OMG! Hahaha... amazing. Maybe this is it.
  
  If you end up liking Dungeon Crawler Carl, I'd also recommend the Completionist Chronicles by Dakota Krout, the first book is Ritualist. Based on what I know of DCC, they are both fairly silly LitRPGS.
Thank you for this list, I just finished the sun symbol audiobooks by Scott Sigler (loved Ray Porter's narration) and was looking for more suggestions.
You are indeed well-read, and I'm finding it difficult to give you an entire list, based on your tastes (which are remarkably close to mine). The two authors that come to mind, whom I haven't seen on your list are

Greg Bear. Anything from him, but I particularly like the The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars duology. You complained about sad books, and these may be depressing, but it's some of the best writing that's still missing from your list.

China Mielville. Wonderfully weird and inventive books, in particular The City & The City and Perdido Street Station.

And since you mentioned Timothy Zahn, in comparison with Card, I take it you already read his The Icarus Hunt? If not, it's also highly recommended for its unabashed fun and good plot.
If you're open to trying fantasy (not far off from sci-fi), the Redwall series might be of interest.

Although it was originally aimed at young teens, it's a very enjoyable series for adults too. Some of the best writing I have ever come across.

Good luck with your search!
- I devoured Redwall 30 years ago. I remember they started feeling pretty repetitive and I read one in my early 20s where there was a weasel who was MAYBE good, but then he turned out to be bad and I was like "OK, I'm done." I know he's written a bunch since then, but I feel like as I've aged I've gotten less interested in fantasy and MORE interested in SciFi. Not 100% sure why. I read a fantasy book every year or so.
  
  Consider giving Steven Erikson a try. Malazan Book of the Fallen is huge and time-consuming, but his style of writing is worth the effort in terms of story and character development. His Willful Child series is Sci-Fi and might provide a way of sampling his very unique style without diving into Fantasy.
Can I just say thank fuck I found someone else who doesn't like three body problem.

It's not just the heavy handed politics. It's literally everything about the book. Narrative devices used are absolutely garbage. Oh there's a video game for some reason, and people LARP as Newton and Qin Shih Huang down to their exact personalities. Why the fuck?

In the second book there's an entire section dedicated to the protag's fantasies. A woman should have at most a Bachelor's so she's smart but not smart enough (paraphrased). What the fuck? And don't get me started on the suicide bomb strat that immediately saw the Muslims and Japanese roped in.

The characters are incredibly dull. They just do one thing, but they don't even do that well. Oh here's Mr. Army guy; personality: army salute-y pragmatic unfeeling. The only character that has an added dimension would be Da Shi the policeman, but adding one more dimension to a point simply results in a plane.

People claim he had innovative ideas for sci-fi. They do realise that the Dark Forest Hypothesis was proposed by someone other than cixin, right?

This turned out to be a rant -- could you tell I hate-read this book cause it pissed me off to no end?
- Yeah, maybe not talking about more of what happened during the Cultural Revolution? I thought he did a good job, portraying the awfulness without getting off-topic. Or the reader may have been expecting something less banal? I've read propaganda works with a strong bend against a country's before, like Heart of Darkness, or in a more light-hearted manner, Catch-22. I'd be curious what the OP felt was too pro-china, as it was something that went completely by my radar.
  
  I thought Liu Cixin portrayed the US quite favourably in the second book, I was pleasantly surprised. Really took a 'equal but different' approach to other cultures I feel.
  
  Trisolarians suck though, except for that one cool one.
  
  I'm with you, I thought it came off as decidedly anti-China. I was actually surprised they got away with it!
- Yes to everything you said, but also the overuse of similes, practically every other sentence. Some concepts were interesting but a good copy editor would have slashed those books in half.
  
  Don’t even get me started on the sexism.
  
  No idea why I bothered with the entire series, even listening to it on audiobook was a waste of time.
I'm a big fan of Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series. There are like 30 books now. The audio books on audible are pretty good.
- They are made/broken by if you like how he describes space battles though. A number of people I have suggested them to hated them, while others liked it.
  
  There is also at least one place where he breaks the in universe rules of physics that really annoys me. (Information travelled in system faster than light)
  
  I enjoyed the Lost Fleet series. This is spot on -- it's a series for the space battles.
  
  The politics are okay, the exploration is interesting, but the romance...ugh, I almost think Campbell should have lost his writing license there.
  
  Oh is there? When did that happen? I assume it was a mistake.
Drew Hayes: Anything he wrote but Superpowereds are about 30 hours on average and there's 4. Phil and Kaja Folio: Girl Genius.

I also don't see The Martian on this page so adding it as a suggestion.
Warhammer 40k has a huge sci-fi universe. Lore has been building since the 80s with hundreds of books. I enjoy them, but I'm not particularly well read.
- They're OK. I've read several of them (also Battle Tech, Star Trek EU old Star Wars EU, MTG Novels, D&D novels, all a bunch of the same authors from way back when). Haven't tried any of the more recent stuff.
I have a hard time finding books to read anymore as well. So many predictable series books without any character depth or significant plot.

Few older ones if you haven't read them yet.

"This Alien Shore" by C.S. Friedman. Make sure you are well caffeinated before reading it. It has a complex plot were details matter. Her "The Madness Season" stands out as well.

"Parafaith War" L.E. Modesitt Jr. If you have any experience with Mormons it will make more sense.

"The Crystal Singer" series by Anne McAffrey. It's a bit dark at times but at least it's a decent story.
The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K Jemisin. Though there's a good chance you've read it as the trilogy won three peat Hugo awards. Progressive attitude and powerful female characters fits the bill here.
Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Its possibly the most original stories in a long time and one of the best audiobooks Ive ever heard.
- You're the second person to suggest this. I didn't know it existed. I fascinated.
  
  The quality of the writing is questionable and the humor is juvenile, but there's an okay story in there. I think it comes down to if you care for death games as a setting.
The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem
- Solaris! Summa Technologiae!!
That is quite the well-assembled list. All of the context is helpful for everyone to make suggestions. Also, your comment about Greg Egan is pure awesome.

Gareth L. Powell's "Embers of War" series was excellent. Scalzi's "Starter Villain" had me laughing painfully hard at points.
- I enjoyed Started Villain a lot. Haven't read Embers of War, but I've looked at it before. Thanks for the recommendation.
Roger Zelazny - Book Of Amber Liu Cixin - Dark Forest trilogy David Weber - Honor series David Drake, lots of good series to choose from Timothy Zahn - again heaps of series
- Zelazny - Read it in high school, remember liking it.
  
  Cixin Liu - He's up there on my list as someone I didn't like.
  
  Webber - Read a bunch of the Honorverse books two decades ago, same time I was reading Bujold and Cherryh and McCaffery.
  
  Zahn - I've read literally everything Zahn has ever written, pleased to see him changing with the times (I mentioned this above).
  
  Right now, I'm interested in things written a bit more recently.
  
  Bujold
  
  I was about to recommend her work until I saw this. She's one of my fav authors.
  
  Some stuff I've read recently that you might check out:
  
  This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar. Sort of a spy vs. spy through time.
  
  His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. What if they had dragons during the Napoleonic wars?
  
  Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas. Time travel is invented in the 1960s, quickly resulting in a time travel Agency. This novel explores a lot of facets of how such an Agency would function.
  
  Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (and its sequels). It's excellent, but I'm struggling to describe it succinctly, so I'll just quote from Goodreads
  
  A race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?
  
  Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear (White Space series). Far-future salvage ship operators discover lost alien technology.
  
  I recommend re-reading some of the series that you "remember liking". I have done it with a bunch of series, including some large ones like WoT and Malazan, and have gotten wayy more out of them after a second reading and at a later age, than I have reading a bunch of new sci fi and fantasy authors.
  
  The bar to publish today has never been lower, so even though I still read a lot I don't often recommend anything. Obviously there are a few stand outs, Andy Weir is a good example, the Expanse guys, etc. but they seem few and far between...
  
  One thing that worked for me when I was struggling to find good new sci fi was to go back through Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominations and read anything I haven't read before. Found some gems in there I had never heard of that stick with me.
  
  Good luck with the search
Some suggestions

Saturn Returns by Sean Williams

the Uplift universe by David Brin (Sundiver, Uplift war, Uplift trilogy etc)

Existence by David Brin

Helix and Helix Wars by Eric Brown

the Shoal Sequence by Gary Gibson
Expeditionary Force by Craig Alanson is one of my recent favorite scifi series. The voice acting is great in the audiobook.
- Filthy Monkeys
  
  If you loved Exforce check out Dungeon Crawler Carl if you havent already.
  
  DCC has been a blast. 5 hours remaining in the Bedlam Bride audiobook at the moment.
Seveneves was great if you haven't read that yet.
- Agreed, it's great. :)
Have you heard of S.H. Jucha’s Silver Ships series? I’ve recently started it and am enjoying it. It’s not hard sci-fi but it’s close enough to make things feel accessible without much suspension of disbelief.
- I have not heard of this! Thank you.
  
  Sure! I hope you find it enjoyable!
Have you read the uplift universe books by David Brin?

Classics, but I did read them a long time ago. No idea how they hold up.
- Just read/listened to them myself, but gave up after Brightness Reef.
  
  Extremely bleak, and lots of ridiculous politics and people acting against their own interests for extremely questionable reasons the whole way through.
  
  I get that the main theme was that all of the powerful alien cultures were fundamentally flawed for very particular reasons, but that didn't really explain the incredibly stupid decisions made by individuals over and over again, seemingly just to show how much better and smarter earthlings are.
Hitchhiker's Guide (free audio) maybe?

https://archive.org/details/hhgttg-ab/001+-+Hitchhikers+Guide+To+The+Galaxy+Pt+01+Of+66.mp3
I'm listening to Project Hail Mary right now. The narrator isn't great at female voices but there's one character that, along with some studio effects, makes the experience super unique and possibly better than reading. It's hard to describe without spoilers.
Are you open to translations? Élisabeth Vonarburg is a great author, and her older books have been translated into English.
I recommend The Interdependency trilogy by John scalzi. I liked it a lot, though you have to live with some deus ex machinas. But the political plot, most ideas, and most of all the characters are very fun.
- I laughed a lot reading that series. Lots of profanity, but really fun.
Some that might not have been mentioned:

Will Wight the Cradle series. Kinda silly but definitely fun.

Julian May the Pleiocene Saga. One of my favorites. Written in the 90s so... Not current but still good.

Mark Lawrence - enjoying most of his books. The Impossible Times trilogy is certainly fun.

Richard Morgan used to be one of my favorites until Netflix ruined the Takeshi Kovacs books.

Again with the older authors: Philip K. Dick (everything). Vonnegut (most, but not the last few books) Gene Wolfe books of the new sun cycle, 12 books if you consider the books of the long sun/short sun. Kinda surreal but hypnotic and addicting. Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic. A classic. Ursula K. Leguin, most of her titles - not as easily read -as there is an emotional level that needs to be absorbed. The Books of Earthsea and the Dispossessed are absolute master level writing.
- Richard Morgan used to be one of my favorites until Netflix ruined the Takeshi Kovacs books.
  
  They really, really did. As someone who loved the books, I found the show unwatchable, which bummed out a couple of my friends who hadn't read the books and were super excited to share this "great new cyberpunk show" with me.
While you're listing a ton of authors, for those of us (🙋) less well read it unfortunately doesn't convey much about which styles or what content you like.

So I'm going to take a few shots in the dark here.

Have you read many online novels? I would recommend Worm (parahumans.wordpress.com) for its sheer length as well as its very different take on what a world with super powers might look like. I would also recommend Ra (qntm.org) for its very interesting approach of treating magic as an established branch of engineering. Both get sorta wild near their ends, but imho they are very well written.
- Worm is awesome! There's a fan created audiobook that's MOSTLY quite good (a couple of the readers are hard to listen to). It got me through a big move where I spent a month driving 2,000 miles every weekend.
Tried any Jack McDevitt? I like both of his main series (Alex Benedict and Priscilla Hutchins ones). Remember enjoying deep six, chindi, and seeker in particular. He has a unique feel which I think I saw someone describe as science fiction archaeology which I think is apt.
- I liked Alex Benedict better than Priscilla Hutchins / Academy... but BOTH really suffer from "It is the far future and humans have spread across space into... an absolutely boring interplanetary monoculture identical to 90s era middle class American suburbia." I could only take that for like... ten books, lol.
  
  Very fair. Good luck finding a new book
All these authors and no one has mentioned the Known Space series by Larry Niven!

Personally I would start with Protector, then Crashlander, then head into Ringworld and the rest.

It's a little dated in places and he's not great at writing women, but it's got some good heavy sci-fi ideas in. The Ringworld megastructure is a fun thing to contemplate.
- I did say "Contemporary." Love Niven.
I recently liked To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. It's no masterpiece, but it's an enjoyable sci-fi. Not as philosophical like many of the books you've mentioned and Paolini definitely has some annoying quirks in his storytelling, but overall it's good.

Don't ever read the prequel, though, that was some hot garbage.
I devour books, so I'm bookmarking this as I am sure there will be some real good gems in here. Feels like a part time job finding new, and absorbing material.
The Lock In / Head On and Dispatcher series from Scalzi are pretty good.

The entire Murderbot Diaries series.

The first Hell Divers book was good (I haven't read the rest yet)
Not scifi but if you liked the expanse, one of the authors has a series "The Long Price quartet" that's quite good. It reminds me of hard sci-fi in some ways, with how the fantasy elements affect the world economically.
If you've not dipped into William Gibson (Neuromancer) and several trilogies since), I've enjoyed all that I've gotten to so far. (Wanna 're-read' the 'Bridge Series' in audiobook.)

(I'm also a fan of Stephenson, Dan Simmons, Charles Stross, and that ilk.)
- I've read most things Gibson has written. Interested in things written more recently right now.
John C Wright has Superluminary available on Audible look like
Three body problem, just give in and listen to it - if you dare.
- Waypoint Kangaroo was really fun, You can't really go wrong with any of the Andy Wier stuff which I didn't see you mention, maybe its a given that if you've read all that you've read all the Wier stuff.
Ahh Ian Banks.... There is only one book left and I fear reading it, which would complete the culture cyclus for me and thus my source of hope for humanity :D
- Which one do you have left
  
  The most recent one... The hydrogen sonata
- I need you to answer them
I'm not as well read as you, so I'm not entirely sure how these stack up against your list, but I enjoyed:

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. It's a YA-Sci-Fi book mostly about what if superheroes were real. Similar vein to The Boys, but not as graphic imo. It's pretty good and you might enjoy that. It also apart of a series called the reckoners

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Paolini wrote the fantasy series "Inheritance" which I though was great and gave this a shot. It's was pretty good, a little slow, but I think that was more to show how slow would be in space even at >C travel.

Probably missed it, but have you tried any of Andy Weir's books? I really enjoyed Artemis and Project Hail Mary has been in my queue.
- Martian read by RC Bray is infinitely better than Wil Wheaton.
  
  PHM is great
  
  But I'm mostly commenting to give a nod to the Reckoners series. It's a YA novel sure but it's a super interesting concept
- Oooo and there's also the Cytonic series by Brandon Sanderson. Again, YA but really good (or at least up until book 3, I haven't finished 4 yet)
Read Sanderson’s library. Or just the cosmere. Well worth your time.
The Swarm by Frank Schätzing, I was glued to the book, A Canticle for Leibowitz is nice, Project Hail Mary was awesome, Martian too
I didn't see Pratchett on the list, even if you have been through the Diskworld before, the re-reads often reveal things you missed.

I'm not as well read as you, so have no idea if that actually matches your taste.

Another (older though) lesser known series is the Dragonriders of Pern. Great if you like to follow a lot of characters (in their own mini series) that interact over an 80 year main series. Starts as fantasy, becomes sci-fi (With dragons!)
- Just to second Diskworld books. They're fun and the world itself is very enjoyable. I did find that some books weren't as good as others l, the earlier witches ones felt like they dragged at times but the watch and anything with the Patrician or Moist was just utter gold!
I'm mostly suggesting this because you didn't list it but Wayne Barlowe has two books about life in hell from the perspective of demons. It's a very novel take on what hell is like. The first book follows a demon general who is trying to get back into heaven. They're called "God's Demon" and "heart of Hell" and the second is a direct sequel to the first.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0TV2mCk83zD3kPUbYdaJbplUOXvScjtD&si=Tke-QixQ31F3EGw0

The Deathworlders, by Hambone, The Xiu Chang Saga by Rantarian, Salvage by HumeReddit, and Humans Don't make good pets, all decent stories set in what gets referred to as The Jenkinsverse by fans of the series.

Salvage is longer than what is included in that listening order, but that's cause HumeReddit dropped into a parallel universe after chapter 60 to 70 or so. Once Adrian blows up a black hole or something.
- I wanted to recommend this series but didn't for lack of an audiobook. I didn't know someone had narrated it
  
  He's not done. I think he's on chapter 60ish of 90 something. He's finished both Salvage and The Xiu Chang Saga
Ok. I like a lot of what you do (but love Neal Asher's space operas) and will recommend Ian Mc Donald, and if you are open to comics, Black Science or Lazarus.
Hugh Howey and Jack McDevitt are a couple that come to mind that I don't see on your list.
The Red Dwarf book series, I think there's seven in all
I see a distinct lack of Neal Asher... Start with Gridlinked

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- I did mention that I don't like Asher... He's a super good story teller, but his need to forcefeed me libertarian ideology and his shallow portrayal of the motivations of anarchists and criminals just turned me off more and more until I was done.
  
  Like you I found it to be a bit, wearing? for lack of a better phrase. It's a shame as the writing is good and the worlds, technology and AIs are all exactly what I was looking for. The thing that tipped me was her personal views IRL, he's anti-vax, anti-climate and spouts some quite fringe conspiracies. Shame really but I'll be scouring your and other people's recommendations to fill the gap so not a complete loss!
  
  That's fair. I was more fond of the minimal use of guns, which really break the "we're thousands of years in the future" immersion with "pew pew".
  
  You spelled it Niel, which was why I didn't find it.
  
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
I barely read at all, but I just picked up House of Leaves, so far I enjoy it but the format of storytelling isn't something I think would work in an audio book.

My friend recently recommended The Three-Body Problem to my girlfriend.

So that's two blind shots for you, maybe you'll like one of them !

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