"reality is so limiting compared to what we can imagine"

This is actually a central theme of the Zones of Thought novels by Vernon Vinge where a character in the far future describes our current time as the "Age of Failed Dreams" (GAI, nanotech etc.) - turns out that he is wrong but for rather neat reasons....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky

Anything in the Culture series by Iain M. Banks;

The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey;

The Commonwealth and Void trilogies by Peter F. Hamilton, and the Night’s Dawn trilogy also by Peter F. Hamilton;

The Dune saga by Frank Herbert.

I'll add the Ancillary (Imperial Radch) series by Ann Leckie to these good suggestions.

Hamilton’s The Reality Dysfunction was the stupidest book I’ve ever read and took hundreds of pages to expose itself. Are his others any more grounded (like your other suggestions)?

Yeah the Night’s dawn series was a bit out there compared to the genre average. The Commonwealth series is considerably closer to baseline, and his best books IMO. The void trilogy (and the newer trilogy whose name escapes me) follow on from the Commonwealth books, and while good, don’t hold up to the first three.

Thanks for the heads up! I liked his writing style so I’ll put them on the list.

did you read the same book as me.. it was pretty awesome

I'm a huge fan of Hamilton's books but I have to agree this one was.. different.

I think I liked it in the end, though not as much as his other books, but can absolutely understand people would dislike it.

The reincarnation of Al Capone?

Foundation Trilogy is not really an Opera, but definetely up there with the big guys. Also an incredibly quick read.

Neal Asher's Polity Series as well.

It's the culture with more detailed worlds and villains.

Is Pandoras Star worth the effort?

Definitely. I still have some series to read, especially the dark tower from Stephen King which I already started, but I think I'll re-read the whole commonwealth saga in the near future.

Yep, the Commonwealth series got solid 4s out of 5s from me, which is very good — I very rarely give a book a 5.

The Baen Free CD has always been a great source of free sci fi books for me