The hardest thing about recommending great Sci-Fi is limiting the list of recommendations. Still, here's a few which immediately spring to mind:
Neal Stephenson's
Snow Crash and William Gibson's
Neuromancer (and the rest of his
Sprawl trilogy) are great stories and perfect starting points if you've not yet touched on Cyberpunk.
For large-scale, multi-species, galaxy-spanning action I can think of no better choices than Iain M. Banks'
Culture series and Peter F. Hamilton's
Night's Dawn trilogy.
If you fancy some high-tech crime thrillers, Neal Asher's
Agent Cormac series is a great read, as indeed are all his other books.
Finally,
Pandora's Star and the sequel
Judas Unchained, both by Peter F. Hamilton, is a great story of how it's sometimes better to leave alone things you don't understand.
PS: damn your quick fingers, jgaiser. Good choices though.
