Books

Thanks y'all, I'm saving this post for all the good recommendations in there :)

Dogs of war

To sleep in a sea of stars

Expeditionary Force

Three body problem

The Aubrey-Maturin series, not sci-fi but just about the best novels there are.

Maybe Foundation series, original 3.

Roadside Picnic is awesome. It inspired the film stalker. I loved it.

While nothing like Dan Simmons, The Three Body Problem is the only one that has knocked my socks off in the last 10 years. If you want to stick with Simmons I recommend Song of Kali.

In the same sort of vain like Hyperion are the Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds. He does the same sort of excellent work of world building and I found both series very comparable and intriguing. Also would recommend the Berserker series by Fred Saberhagen, very much a similar feel.

Check out the Miles Vorkosigan saga. Tons of novels. Good stuff.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is fine, but it's not Bladerunner so yeah it might be jarring. It's also not even close to his best work imo.

Some of my favorite Dick novels: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and A Scanner Darkly. I think those are his two best imo. The Man in the High Castle is pretty good, but not at all indicative of his other work.

Now Wait for Last Year, and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, are also pretty good. I liked what I read of UBIK, but didn't finish it. I have a friend that swears by it though.

Some people swear by his latter stuff (e.g. VALIS), but I was never able to get into it. You can kind of see his mind starting to slip as you read his stuff (which leads to some incredibly mind bending shit in his early-mid works), and by the end, it's kind of nonsensical imo.

It's kind of tragic to read about his life at the time he was writing. The afterword of A Scanner Darkly goes into some detail, including listing the names of friends that "didn't make it" (usually due to drugs). Later, during the VALIS years, he was having full-own psychotic breaks and hallucinatory events where he thought he was Thomas from the Bible, living in ancient Rome or some shit. And his writing started to reflect all of this.

I've only read the first Hyperion book (and fucking loved it), but keep in mind, Dick wrote a different kind of sci-fi that was more about exploring consciousness, existence, the concept of self, psychedelic drugs, etc. as opposed writing space epics or whatever. Not to say that they don't sometimes take place in space, but just don't expect the kind of grand narratives you're gonna get with someone like Asimov. Completely different type of sci-fi.

That said, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is his hidden gem imo. If you know, you know.

Sue Burke's Semiosis was an interesting read (go in blind is my recommendation)

The dude on the cover looks like Longfinger Kirk from Dark Souls 3 with the Thorn set armor.

A lot of good recommendations already but here are some I didn't see.

The Madness Season. Follows a vampire secretly living among humans after a alien race with a hive mind conqueres Earth.

Eight Worlds series by John Varley. Aliens with reality warping powers show up and kick humanity off Earth and Jupiter. Humanity has now colonized all the other planets. People and society have evolved in strange ways.

The Final Architecture. giant aliens sometimes show up and reshape planets with life into giant sculptures.

Wraeththu Chronicles by Storm Constantine.

If you're wanting a break from the serious sci-fi, take a look at Expeditionary Force, it's hilarious.