Reddit reviews Pandora's Star (The Commonwealth Saga Book 1)

• Alastair Reynolds tends to yield polarized reactions, but I enjoyed House of Suns. Granted, there isn't much in the way of alien life, but it has the "destructive faction in the galaxy" sort of feel.
  
  
• Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton, as mentioned by another commenter. If you can get used to the author's wordy prose, it's a pretty cool story and creative setting involving humanity's expansion across the stars and eventual encounter with an alien race.
  
  
• Also seconding the Babylon 5 TV series recommendation by another commenter. A galaxy filled with various alien races, with their own inter-empire political histories and wars. After all of that gets set up, a mysterious threat looms over every civilization, and...well you'll just have to watch, haha.
  
  
• I know you weren't asking about video games, but I highly recommend the Mass Effect series. One of the best threat-of-extinction space opera stories of our time, in my opinion (a lot of people hated the ending, but I thought it was fine, so YMMV).
  
  
• Star Wars. Of course.
  
  
• If you're okay with amateur fiction, go to /r/HFY and sort by top/all-time. Have fun.

Almost all of Peter F. Hamilton's books are like this. Huge plots that intermingle. Its not nearly as gory or as ummm unexpected as ASOIAF, but they are my favorite books. He also is one of the best futurists that I can think of to date. He does not get too crazy with future technology and strives to make sure that everything is plausible and makes sense. I highly recommend it

I would start with Pandora's star, its the first of the Commonwealth series. If you want some plot points I'll be happy to summarize.

If you didnt want to hop into a series right away, Fallen Dragon is a decent starter stand-alone so you can get into his work.There are a few less characters since its not as epic, but a really great read.

The Nights Dawn trilogy is pretty massive as well with even more 1st person views. I just finished it (1.2M words!!!) and while I loved it, the concepts were a bit out there. Its a great read tho.

I agree, everyone seems to suggest the same series of books by the same authors. But that's the echo chamber effect.

My favorite series that I never see represented is by Peter F. Hamiltion. The Commonwealth saga of books:

• Pandora's Star
  
• Set a few hundred years in the future, humanity has traveled the galaxy via wormholes, but some astronomers led by a far reaching conspiracy unlock a star that ancient aliens walled up to protect the universe from the narrowminded aliens that inhabit it. Naturally, humans open it and unleash MorningLightMountain onto the greater Commonwealth and cause billions of deaths.
  
• Judas Unchained
  
• The 2nd part of humanity's battle with MorningLightMountain, picks up right where things left off and ties everything together.
  
• The Dreaming Void
  
• Set in the same universe, but over 1,000 years later, humanity has traveled around the galaxy now and opened up a few more mysteries, but one remains - what is inside the black hole at the center of the galaxy? One human dreamed of paradise in there, and now trillions of humans want to go in.
  
• The Tempral Void
  
• Continues the tale of people trying to get into The Void, and the issues it's causing
  
• The Evolutionary Void
  
• The final chapter of The Void trilogy, does everything work out?
  
• The Abyss Beyond Dreams
  
• Set between Judas & The Void Trilogy, this is about another set of humans trying to get into the black hole at the center of the universe
  
• A Night Without Stars
  
• Not released yet, but finishes up the story of the humans who tried to get into the void.
  
  The entire series of books is very fast paced, but it's a space opera. He often spends 50 or so pages introducing a character not to be seen again until the next book. It's worth it though, Hamilton is great at tying up all those loose ends in ways you wouldn't think possible.
  
  Hamilton is often recommended for his other trilogy - Night's Dawn. Personally, I felt that was very poorly done. For instance, the 2nd book has no outcome on the end events whatsoever. Plus, it's very much more typical for a space opera zombie book series. Not my cup of tea, so to speak.

Not classic but Peter F. Hamilton spins a good yarn.


Commonwealth Saga - A two parter that starts with Pandora's Star

The Void Trilogy - A trilogy that starts with The Dreaming Void. This is set in the same universe but many centuries after The Commonwealth Saga.

[The Commonwealth Saga]
[Void Trilogy]
[Mindstar Rising]

The Expanse Series: Definitely military. Very well done.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+expanse+series

Pandora Star: Well done. Far forward mainstream Sci-Fi. Book One of the Commonwealth Series. Possibly Hamilton's best. http://www.amazon.com/Pandoras-Star-Commonwealth-Peter-Hamilton-ebook/dp/B000FC1AFC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421719806&sr=8-1&keywords=pandora+star

Relayor isn't military - it's SWAT. Lots of action. Strong character development, interesting plot. Lots of surprises. A couple of new concepts that will blow you away.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HI4PA8S

Also from the FAQ:

Pandora's Star by Peter F Hamilton.

Wormholes, immortality, brain downloading, lots of space opera. 5/5 stars from me, 4 stars from Amazon customers.

Pandora's Star is excellent if you have not read it. It's what happens if we discover life on a planet when we are a space-faring society.

If you don't mind a little science fiction, I'd say the Commonwealth Saga by Peter Hamilton.

The best responses to your points to me are found in, Peter Hamilton's Commonweath Series, and the brand new Bobiverse Series by Dennis Taylor and Ghost in the Shell. If you for some reason hate books, reading, and anime here is a quick TLDR: Just because the new you is a copy doesn't make it worthless, or makes death any less horrifying. Furthermore, the potential options are more than simply copying a brain before/during death. There's the whole nanite brain replacement Ship of Theseus issue starting from simple neural augmentation all the way to full on cybernetic replacement.

You'd really like the Bobiverse, it literally has entire genealogies of copies of one nerd, each with slightly different slowly diverging viewpoints which I found captivating and engaging.

Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained (sequel) are excellent