What are some of your favorite scifi book authors, and books by them?

Alastair Reynolds has written on of my favorites ever, House of Suns, and I really like the lore of his Revelation Space universe. I especially enjoyed the spinoffs exploring the Yellowstone demarchy centered around Panoply.

Inhibitor Phase ended up a weaker entry, imo, charachters that felt a bit too much like Mary Sues. Like mere excuses to exposition dump about the universe itself. Which did enjoy immensely. Still I would much rather have seen some large scale change occur, rather than a the mere zoom-in on some catalytic events.