You could read novels, but I personally think you're going to get a better intro to SF and more enjoyment, and a better chance of finding "your thing" if you read short stories. You can then read the novels you know you'll enjoy. I love SF anthologies, not only because you get a collection of pre-selected awesome pieces, but also you get to sample a ton of different authors with different styles in the same number of pages as reading a novel would get you just a single story and a single author. Also, many consider the short story the ultimate and best form for science fiction.

I suggest anthologies that collect stories over multiple years instead of just "best of the year" collection. For obvious reasons, you get better stories. Here are the best I know of:

• The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy
  
• The Hard SF Renaissance (One or two stories from this will answer the question of whether you like Hard SF.)
  
• The Science Fiction Century
  
• Twenty-First Century Science Fiction (sort of a sequel to the previous one)
  
• Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 1, 2a, and 2b (This is kind of a survey of historical SF, ranging from the '20s to the '60s.)
  
  So you could go historically starting with old stories and working your way more contemporary, in which case you'd start with SF Hall of Fame. But it might be a better idea to start with the most contemporary stuff and go backwards. In that case, you'd start with Locus Awards and start in the back of the book.
  
  In terms of specific authors, I would be amiss not to encourage you to read Ted Chiang. He has written only 13 short stories between 1992 and now, but he's won more awards for them than most SF authors do in their lifetime including the prestigious Nebula, Locus and Hugo awards, among others! READ. HIS. STORIES. He has an awesome anthology Stories of Your Life and Others plus you can buy his more recent stories on amazon.
  
  You should also read Greg Egan. And Enders Game if you somehow missed it. There's also the classic Arthur C. Clarke, either his short stories, or a novel like City and the Stars.
  

Composing this reply, I'm struggling to define "best".

The shortlist is:

1. Voice of the Whirlwind is basically cyberpunk with corporate intersystem space espionage, and it was the first of his books that I read.
   When I found this novel in a secondhand bookshop in Brighton, I'd never read anything like it and it blew me away. This was before the internet was commonplace, and I have a distinct memory of experiencing surprise and pleasure, upon rediscovering Voice of the Whirlwind, at the realisation that I was now able to search this guy on Amazon and find out what else he'd written.
   Simply because I'm such a fanboi of this book, I can't recommend it in any kind of unbiased way, but I think it should get more recognition.
   
   
2. Metropolitan and its sequel City on Fire are unique and either genre-defining or -defying. It's absolutely safe for me to again say that this is an under-recognised work of Williams' - someone will probably chine in to say "I see WJW recommended here all the time", but there are so many space flight / exploration books which are constantly mentioned by this subreddit that don't have a fraction of the originality of Metropolitan. With it WJW rips up the rules and recreates the universe on his own terms.
   
   
3. The Green Leopard Plague is a relatively recent publication - perhaps I'm including it for that reason but it's also a shorter work, which is what WJW likes writing best.
   I'm not sure if WJW would consider short stories his "artistic calling", but certainly he's said that he'd like to write more of them and can't, because only full-length novels pay the bills.
   I do have reservations about Green Leopard Plague, but I think these boil down to an insubstantial feeling that it's somehow "not science fiction enough", yet I think that's actually a reflection of the literary quality of the writing, something which is in really short supply in the genre.
   There is something really enigmatic about the way events in this story are seen from different views, and I think its portrayal of data research is also really insightful.
   
   Additional, I think that Angel Station and Ambassador of Progress are worthy of mentioning, both really solid sci-fi, and that his short stories (another collection) deserve to be read.
   
   I'm sure I've read Aristoi twice now, but to be honest I find it a bit unmemorable.
   
   I have a bit of a theory about the eclectic range of William's work and that it divides his audience - if you loved Aristoi then you might not agree with my recommendations.
   
   Whereas some authors always carry a similar tone, flavour and vision throughout everything they write, I don't think it's possible to judge Williams properly or fairly without reading a good body of his work.

I've only read three of those (Kingkiller, Monster Hunter and Butcher's books) but from those three it sounds like you enjoy strong, principled main characters that prefer fairness/justice to lawfulness. If that is the case, tehn you might enjoy a lot of the mystery/noir SF. The Kop series is brilliant. David Brin's Kiln People is excellent as well, although I am less certain about the description grabbing you.

Speaking of Brin, Glory Season and The Practice Effect blend SF and fantasy brilliantly.

Also how has no one mentioned Wild Cards!?! That should be right up your alley, excepting the fact that it is mostly short fiction.

Adrian Tarn Series is definitely one of my favorites and isn't very well known. Definitely check this series out.

Odyssey One Series is pretty good.

Confluence Series is interesting.

Aurora Rhapsody Series is a good series too.

Dark Space Series is pretty decent as well.

The Frozen Sky Series is certainly entertaining too.

These are a few series I've read recently and enjoyed. Figured they would be good suggestions. They also aren't the most commonly suggested or well known books like the others that were suggested.

Although the other recommendations are definitely ones you want to read. Especially the Ender's Game sequels and the Old Man's War series.

You can't go wrong with Frederik Pohl's Gateway. It's an older classic that won all the best novel awards.

For more recent SF, Hugh Howey's Wool Omnibus is outstanding.

In fantasy, I've really enjoyed Joe Abercrombie this past year. Good characters, good plots, and good action scenes. The Blade Itself is the first of his series...all his books take place in the same fantasy world.

zem beat me to the punch with 'Last and First Men' I can't recommend this book more. If you're in a country with copyright laws of life +50 years then this is in the public domain i.e. free and legal to download (I'd recommend Gutenberg Australia).

Not a novel but a similar concept to 'Last and First Men' is Dougal Dixons Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future (to navigate to each chapter, click on the links at the bottom of each page; 200, 300,....5 million years hence).

Frank Herberts Dune explores the idea of the evolution of humanity with the Guild Navigators, Mentats, Bene Gesserit, Bene Tleilax etc. [mini rant](/s"Although his son has stated in his toilet paper worthy novels that these aren't so much cases of gradual evolution as sudden developments that seem to fit well into a narrative in order to make money")

Robert Reeds novel Sister Alice tells a story spanning hundreds of thousands of years with humans having gained godlike powers. Also by the same author and in the same vein I'd recommend Marrow and The Well of Stars.

Alastair Reynolds also did a good job with House of Suns; very similar to 'Sister Alice'.

Can you believe I've typed that twice because of a blue screen of death.

Interesting - but a "strong sign" of what? A strong sign that it is not a good book, or worthy of award recognition? There is a strong horror element to the book that would turn off those who dislike disturbing reading. Maybe 20%? Regardless, whatever we might suppose "worthy" to be, I think we can agree that it means something other than popular.

For comparison, Blindsight by Peter Watts is often trotted out as one of the best in the sci-fi horror genre. It has a similar profile - arguably slightly less positive, with 29% at 3 stars or fewer.

I'd say they are somewhat similar novels - well written, imaginative, original takes, genre-bending, and just not everyone's cup of tea.

OK this list is all different types of authors and stories, maybe you will find something you like:

Reach for Infinity

Peter Watts, Beyond The Rift

James Alan Gardner, Gravity Wells

Greg Egan, Axiomatic

Cory Doctorow, A Place So Foreign

Michael Swanwick, Tales of Old Earth

John Varley, Persistence of Vision

Edward Bryant, Particle Theory. Stories from 70's & 80's, but solid.

The Best of Interzone. Stories from the British SF magazine.

Dozois has the Annual Best. The stories are all over the board for subjects, with alot of well known current authors, and some relatively unknowns. This is kind of a big clunky oversized book - not great if you want a small paperback to carry around, or read in an airport.

Hartwell's annual SF. This is a small paperback size - usually some crossover with stories also in the Dozois collection.

Good luck.

• Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith - very imaginative, sort of across between, say, the humor of Douglas Adams and the down to Earth noir of Raymond Chandler.
  
• Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. Everything SciFi should be.
  
• The Hainish Cycle (or if you're made of money) by Ursula K. Le Guin. Pretty much every single SciFi author you like has read these and been inspired by them, that should tell you a lot, iconic stories and concepts.
  
• Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh. The core novel in the author's Alliance-Union Universe stories. Great ideas, great stories.

^(Note: these are all books I've read and can recommend from experience.)

David Brin's Sundiver is a detective mystery. Likewise his Existence is a mystery about a recently discovered artifact, though its presentation with multiple perspectives lacks the singular detective tone of Sundiver. It's not as much of a mystery/thriller more of a mystery/adventure. It is also one of the overall best science fiction novels I've ever read; the writing is top notch, the characters superbly lifelike, the tone excellent, and the overall reading experience enjoyable and filled with a realistic optimism.

Gregory Benford's Artifact is an investigative mystery about a strange artifact. His Timescape is about a strange phenomenon.

Jack McDevitt's The Engines of God is an investigative mystery about a strange artifact.

Asimov's The End of Eternity is a classic mystery/thriller.

Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect and Chasm City are both standalone detective mysteries. His Revelation Space is similar, but does not have the same classic mystery tone.

Greg Bear's Queen of Angels and Slant are both standalone detective mysteries.

I seem to recall the Second Foundation (Foundation's Fear, Foundation and Chaos, Foundation's Triumph) trilogy by Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, and David Brin having some mystery aspects. I think one of them at least is a detective mystery, but I can't remember which right now.

Dan Simmons' Ilium/Olympos is a sort of detective mystery, but its tone is much more action/adventure despite the protagonist's undertakings to determine what in the world is going on.

Joan D. Vinge's Cat Trilogy (Psion, Catspaw, and Dreamfall) are detective mysteries.

Julian May's Perseus Spur is a detective mystery. It's pretty light-hearted and a lot of fun to read. Something you would pick up at an airport bookstore and not be at all disappointed with. I can't speak for the other two books in the trilogy, haven't read them yet. Just ordered them off Amazon for $4 a piece.

I could go on, but I think that should keep you busy for a while.

 

^(Edited to clarify the tone of some suggestions. Some are more traditional mystery/thriller, while others are more adventure/mystery, more alike to Indiana Jones than a noir detective.)

Best novel: The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. Hands down the best novel yet from the author of Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. It's a story about the ways we change and even become a different person as we age. It's a story about a secret war between psychic immortals. It's the story of the slow loss of our planet at our own hands. It's sad and funny and poignant. It's Mitchell applying all the experiments with prose, narrative, and character perspective from his previous novels to built a coherent linear narrative.

Best novellette / novella (I'm not sure which it is): The Colonel by Peter Watts. I think I liked this even more than the book it was an intro for, and I liked Echopraxia a lot. A near-future posthuman super-soldier/-spy mourns for his lost son.

Speaking of:

Best novel: Echopraxia by Peter Watts. A dumpy scientist, said super-solider, a vampire, and a religious order/hive-mind explore the power array circling our sun for signs of alien infestation. Watts is a master of pairing hard biology and physics with out-there yet plausible philosophy of mind and identity.

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi are both amazing, deep, engrossing books with worlds of their own. I cannot recommend them enough.

Also, China Mieville's books are pretty awesome, though more urban fantasy than SciFi. Still worth a read.

I have reread Jumper a few times. I found it many years before the movie. While the movie was ok. I enjoy the books original world better. I didn't like the paladin thing.

He also has other non jumper books that are very good.

• Jumper by Steven Gould (Jumper, Reflex, Jumper: Griffin's Story, Impulse, [Shade](https://www.google.com/#q=Steven Gould AND Shade)))
  
  
• Non Series Books by Steven Gould (7th Sigma, Blind Waves, Helm, Wildside))

The Spinward Fringe series is great - it is an indie writer, but I find it better written than most indie stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Spinward-Fringe-ebook/dp/B004EPYUXA

The first one's free, the rest are decently priced.

I enjoyed Spinward Fringe by Randolph Lalonde. It's not high literature but I thought it was overall well written, a bit pulpy in the best possible way. It takes the Star Trek large spaceship model and dives a bit more into the leadership, tactics, day to day life of running a large spaceship, etc. At least the first one did.

It came out last month, but I just saw it and scooped it:

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection - Dozois

I get really excited when this anthology comes out.

Try Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon or Walter John William's Hrdwired for some good cyberpunk. For a good post-apocalypse novel you might like Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. It blends genres (mystery + noir + SF) and I think does a great job of introducing a novice to SF .

[Edit] FWIW, I purposely avoided the "classics" as I think many of them would be quite dated to today's audience and would not be a good intro into the genre. But I would hope that as their taste in SF evolves that they would find the classics on their own and would be better able to appreciate them.

>Anyone read this book?

Dude, it's practically the Citizen Kane of cyberpunk. Dated, hard to grasp and totally genre changing. I loved it when I discovered it in the early 90's but truth be told it's been surpassed several times.

Read it, and if you find the themes interesting try Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.

Short story by Ted Chiang - story of your life.

You can find it here. The whole collection is worth a read. It's the best short stories collection I've read, maybe ever.

https://www.amazon.com/Existence-David-Brin/dp/0765342626

For me, it was a different take on "first contact". It's a really fun read, set a little bit further in the future from today.

"Join Us!"

https://www.amazon.com/Into-Black-Remastered-Odyssey-Book-ebook/dp/B005ML0EZS/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1482678404&sr=1-3&keywords=into+the+black

about half of this series is pretty good. nothing fancy just hard scifi mixed with space opera. i honestly have no idea why i like these books but i'll buy them when they come out and read most of them

Try Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan; it's one of the best combinations of action, atmosphere, and hi-tech ideas.

The Odyssey One series (book 1 by Evan Currie comes to mind.

It's pulp, but fun.

*****

The Culture Series (book 1) by Iain Banks also comes to mind.

This one is a bit more serious than Odyssey One, and I've only read the first book so far... It might turn out to be very different.

Gateway. I loved it. Its a whole series.

Amazon one-star reviews. There you go.

But it really is a fantastic book, so give it a shot.

Pushing Ice meets the most of your requirements.

Forever Peace was a good read.

And Steal Across the Sky was worth reading.

Schismatrix Plus, that is Schismatrix and all related short stories, is only somewhat opera-ish but it might be interesting nevertheless. It's very short and condensed, establishes a universe with several factions, covers a big period of time.

I enjoyed David Brin's Existence but it's probably not the War of the Worlds style invasion that you're looking for.

Kindle light SF/Space Opera-y and free, [Spinward Fringe: Origins][http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Spinward-Fringe-ebook/dp/B004EPYUXA].

I just finished, and rather enjoyed Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs Novels), which also falls into the cyberpunk noir genre. The first one at least, haven't read the rest yet.

It's tightly written, has a unique dynamic tension between the characters and the aliens are truly alien. It's unlike any other science fiction book that I've read.

But don't take my word for it, you can read it here online before the sequel comes out next month.

There is Baxter's Xeelee Sequence, or you might enjoy Pohl's Heechee Saga...

I'd suggest finding a short story collection, such as the Gardner Dozois annual years' best, or one of the Hugo winners collections.

Rather than the Revelation Space story itself, I actually prefer some of his "stand-alone" books. I quite liked Pushing Ice and The Prefect (which happens to take place in the Revelation Space universe.

It is discussed in some detail in the novel Blindsight by Peter Watts (as /u/cmfg said), and also in the short story I, Row Boat by Cory Doctorow. Those are the ones that immediately come to mind at least…

The series beginning with Altered Carbon is next on my to-read list. It might be worth a look for you.

I'd suggest Evan Currie's Odyssey One series.

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005ML0EZS/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?qid=1452103955&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=evan+currie+odyssey+series&dpPl=1&dpID=41kcyUuABhL&ref=plSrch

http://www.amazon.com/Echopraxia-Peter-Watts/dp/076532802X

Frederik Pohl's Heechee Saga, starting with Gateway, is about humans finding, using, and trying to understand ships and artifacts left behind by a mysterious alien civilization. There's no initial attack, but humans use their tech to explore space (to try to get rich).

This may be a weird recommendation, but Altered Carbon. It's also cyberpunk, but a bit more violent. Looks at concepts of identity in a world where backing your brain up is easy, but bodies are expensive.