Books

I really liked Adrian Tchaikovsky's stuff. Particularily "Children of Time" and a lot of his standalone novels like "Alien Clay", "Shroud", and "Service Model".

Another good book that explores truly alien aliens is "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge. I really like how a lot of concepts are presented in a way that initially lets you sort of figure out whats going on before too much exposition is used to clarify alien ideas.

Finally, I need to recommend David Brin's books, like the uplift trilogies or oven his weirder stuff like Kiln People. He does a good job of establishing a technology or social convention and building a world around it.

Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies.

Anything from Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth saga.

The Saga of Seven Suns by Kevin J Anderson.

I'll think of more.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series is pretty good.

The closest I have found is Neal Asher's Polity books. I like Asher even more, if they are a bit darker. I can't recommend them enough.

Foundation is a good series in a similar vein. But I agree with artifex. Nothing really beats The Culture.

It’s hard to beat the Culture series. While not quite the same I found that Ken MacLeod’s Engines of Light Trilogy and Ursula LeGuin’s Hanish Cycle books were both excellent in their own ways and hit a lot of similar notes.

Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space series is excellent. My introduction/entry point was "Chasm City," and that played out awesomely for getting into the first two novels in the formal trilogy. Reynolds was also partially inspired by the Culture series.

I enjoyed Cixin Liu's Rememberance of Earth's Past trilogy (Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End).

The Xeelee series is pretty great if you're looking for another multi-book commitment

Which novel was your favorite?