Books - What are you reading?

Dune - the first book is superb, don't bother with the sequels

Any of the Iain M Banks Culture books work as standalone novels. Try Consider Phlebas or Use of Weapons first. Against a Dark Background is also a favourite of mine, which ia a standalone book not in the Culture universe.

Read Robert McCammon' Swan Song.

https://www.robertmccammon.com/novels/swan_song.html

Similar to King's The Stand, better imo.

Now reading another McCammon, Boy's Life. A wonderfully gothic magical tale from the pov of a young boy growing up in The Southern US

Sci-fi and fantasy recs:

I really enjoyed Hyperion! Raced through the entire series, actually. I liked the literary references throughout and found the world-building and characterisation really well-formed.

Roadside Picnic - been mentioned in this thread recently, quite literary sci-fi (by which I mean the prose feels considered rather than functional, must have been a good translator!) - love the premise and the ambience created.

Iain M Banks - I just fucking love the culture novels so much. Granted, there are lots of them (which is a good thing!) but they're pretty much all self-contained, discrete works, just set in the same world. Proper 'space operas', the world building is insane, and the books properly rattle along like thrillers. The advice seems to be mixed on whether there's much value reading in order - if you just wanted to dip your toe in to see if you liked it, my favourites are Player of Games, Excesion and Use of Weapons.

Asimov's foundation series is also amazing, much better than the rather confusing tv series is spawned on Apple recently. It was my gateway into sci-fi; so approachable, really good fun and some nice philosophy woven in too.

Fantasy - The Name of the Wind is unbelievably good, but the kicker is that it's a purported trilogy for which we've been waiting ~10 years+ for the final installment. Still, the first two books are incredible as they are and I still recommend them to people even with the likelihood of ever receiving the final instalment seemingly in the balance.

Empire of the Vampire - new-ish series by Jay Kristoff, it's very gothic, you're sort of in the world of Victorian horror but with a bit more magic. The construct is that you're hearing this story retold to a 'biographer' which gives some interesting layers to the story, but it's well-written and a great fucking romp with vampires and magical 'silversaints'. Not proper literary fiction by any stretch, but a cut above most generic fantasy stuff and massively enjoyable. Proper holiday read. Or something to smash on a commute.

Broken Earth trilogy - actually quite beautifully written, the social commentary is thinly veiled but doesn't detract from the story being told and I thought it was a really interesting and nuanced take on the genre.

Oh God I could go on...

The Three Body Problem trilogy is great sci fi that feels blockbuster-y whilst still being interesting conceptually, without being terribly written or cheesy. They're making it in to a series I believe.

I'm currently reading Caliban's War, the second in the Expanse series. It's definitely pretty trashy but ticks the blockbuster, easy to blast through box. I'm about 100 pages in in a couple of days.

Fantasy wise, I read all of the Earthsea series by Ursula K Le Guin last year and absolutely loved them. Not without their problems but I really enjoyed them.

William Gibson "Bridge trilogy " is awesome, I preferred to necromancer.
And also Pattern Recognition is worth a look, probably my favourite of all.