Science Fiction

Two obvious suggestions are Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series, and Issac Asimov’s “Foundation” series.

Both are sci-fi classics (Dune is still the best selling sci-fi book of all time I believe) and are space operas of a massive scope.

They are also some of my personal favorites.

No love for Iain M Banks? The Culture series looks like it will tick all your boxes and instead of following a single protagonist the Culture itself is the protagonist so each book has it's own cast of interesting characters.

Dan Simmons - Hyperian ~~K~~Cantos. Four books in the series, well worth a read imo... I loved it

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time / Children of Ruin / Children of Memory (not read the third but am sure it'll be as good as the first two)

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. I liked the prequel, A Deepness in the Sky even more.

Reality Dysfunction, Hyperion, Red Rising, Dune, The Expanse, Foundation, The Mote in God's Eye

Pandora’s Star and the sequel Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton

Alastair Reynolds - Revelation space i.e. Inhibitor sequence

Peter F Hamilton - Void trilogy in the Commonwealth universe

Children Of Time Trilogy.

Amazing books that explore topics like Consciousness and Intelligence from angles you wouldn't expect

It's not one of the Culture novels, but The Algebraist by Iain Banks is one of my favorite one book cover to cover operas.

John Scalzi's Old Man's War series was a long and pretty interesting read.

Premise starts out as a "humanity vs the stars" kind of story, but instead of sending young people to their deaths, the futuristic human society instead recruits old people who have already lived full lives. You can enlist towards the end of your natural life to transfer your mind to a (photo)synthetic purpose-built humanoid super soldier body. If you survive a period of time (5 years?), you earn another shot at life and can elect to become a colonist for far away worlds. Most don't get that far. Your usual "long-term relationship tensions," "humans are always bad guys," "what will technology think of next?" tropes apply.

Another series I liked is the Castle Federation series by Glynn Stewart.

This series spans a much shorter timeframe throughout its books but contains much more civil-war type political intrigue and seems to focus more on an important battle or two per book. As such, you get a more granular view of one starship officers experiences from the unit level up to the fleet. Tactics, deception, and an almost constant state of Pyrrhic victories help to make you feel like you aren’t simply following around a grand hero figure who is the unspoken savior of the galaxy. I don’t really remember how the series starts, but it’s mostly (or all) human-vs-human conflicts.

Last series I enjoyed is the Frontlines storyline by Marko Kloos.

In contrast to the stories above, it’s humans (mostly) good, aliens bad. A dystopian future is rocked by the sudden appearance of monolithic and seemingly invincible stegosaurus-like alien beings. They show up, terraform your world with CO2, and brush off humanity like we’re ants. You follow a few main characters who give you insight to how the big governments operate, how soldiers are thrown into unwinnable conflicts, and how freedom fighters back home protest against the majority of humanity’s production efforts going towards war while ignoring the problems at home. There’s a good mix of hopeless alien combat, human conflict and frustration towards the military industrial complex, Judge Dredd-like slums, and some anthropology thrown into the mix. Facing an existential threat, would you throw everything at offense and let your people starve?

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 🌌 . Probably not what you’re looking for.

Revelation Space.

Niven's Ringworld series

Foundation?

I really like Neal Asher's books. Sprawling long series (what is the plural of series?) and so good.

Was recommended the Children of Time books, am halfway through the first and WOW. I love it.

Have you read any of Alastair Reynolds's books?

House of Suns, while just a single book, felt like it had one of the biggest universes I'd ever read a story set in, and is my favorite sci-fi book, ever.

For something bigger, look into his Revelation Space series. It's a bunch of books, some connected, some not, all set in the same universe.

The Damned trilogy by Alan Dean Foster Hyperion by Dan Simmons The Culture series by Iain M Banks

If you like Star Wars (original trilogy, that is), I'd recommend Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. I can also recommend his Conquerer's trilogy and Cobra series.

I liked The Lost Fleet, personally. The space battles are excellent, and they're quick reads. Agreed about the plot, though, it takes a while. Worth it overall IMO.

You might consider the Iron Druid series, too. It's written in a lighter tone than the Dresden Files, but it's got a similar vibe.

You might check out Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison, too. It's another urban fantasy with an interesting world premise. I struggle a little to recommend it -- I lost interest fairly quickly, but if you don't mind some romance in your urban fantasy, you might like it more than I did. And if you do like it, it's a long series, over a dozen books!

Even if you don't think you're into Warhammer 40k you should check out the books. There's 100's of them and are actually very good. I put them off for a long time because i thought they'd just be battle porn. They are well written with compelling narratives, great characters, a sprawling galaxy full of different aliens and factions, and of course the aforementioned war porn.

If you are hesitant like i was, i recommend starting with the first three books in the Horrus Heresy. There's like 40 something of them but the first three you could read and put down satisfied without continuing if you wanted.

I always list the three books out for people because there's so many it's easy to get lost looking for them.

Horrus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames

As for a non-opera book, I highly recommend Seven Eves. I don't think i saw it in your post. But you had a long list so forgive me if i missed it. It's one book, pretty long though and one of my GOATS.

Huge Honor fan here. Have you read Weber's other huge series, Safehold. Not space opera, more like sea opera, but it hits many of the same buttons that Honor does.

If you're looking for genuine space opera, I quite enjoyed the Final Architecture series by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

You would typically be the person I would go to for book suggestions, not the other way around.

Sorry I can’t help more :/

What? No love for the Pern books by Anne McCaffrey? I love em. Gotta love genetically engineered dragons.

Third vote for Dune!

Simon R. Greens Deathstalker series is pretty much what you're describing. Very much space opera, melodramatic and big on action. They're not incredibly well written but lots of fun.

How about the Uplift series by David Brin? Start with Sundiver

Takeshi Kovachs is power fantasy, gary sue, erotica. The universe has an interesting premise, but utterly refuses to explore any of the implications properly.

It's explicitly stated that cortical stacks only record a mind, but cannot run one. But then how exactly does a mind get "written" to a body it didn't originate in? A brain IS its contents, you can't just swap out the harddrive and use the same CPU. A human brain is both storage medium and processor, but this fact is never dealth with. What if the human brain was overriden by a cortical stack running a mind? What if there was always an "original" trapped copy running on that wetware? So much more interesting, but all that potential detail is just handwaved off.

What happens if you install someone into a brain that's damaged? Does that person now have a brain damage related disability while in that body?

And the ever referenced "quellism", some newfangled ultimate ideology for achieving utopia, that is never ever actually explained or explored. And when the creator of that dogma appears, she's little more than a set of genitals for our dear main character to screw.

The best book in the series, is the second, dealing which with the ancient aliens that came before humans, and even in that one Takeshi hypno fingerbangs a woman out of her ptsd. What. The. Fuck. Maybe the netflix series skipping to the third book was for the best.

Have you read Hannu Rajaniemis Jean le Flambeur series?

It's a very high concept narrative, that begins with our main character being broken out of a simulated prison, where he is forced to play endless games of the prisoners dilemma, against endless copies of himself and other prisoners.

It continues on to tell a story set within our solar system, that's complex on levels that can be hard to keep up with at times.

In this universe, where people end and software begins, is blurred, and the same is true for the edge between reality and simulation.

Some people are doomed to exist and be used as mere software for completing complex tasks, while others step through matter-conversion gates between the real and simulated on a regular basis.

I really, really loved it.

You could try Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan. It's the first book in the trilogy. The book was better then the Netflix series.

Starship Trooper

The Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie

The Three Body problem is a an absolutely phenomenal take on the Dark Forest Theory.

It has the unfortunate quality of reading like a news article at times, recounting events, rather than feeling like an illustrated narrative. And some plot points hinge on the authors pre-conceived notions about gender that really didn't sit well with me.

I don't think any has mentioned this yet, The Expeditionary Force series?