I really liked Adrian Tchaikovsky’s stuff. Particularily “Children of Time” and a lot of his standalone novels like “Alien Clay”, “Shroud”, and “Service Model”.

Another good book that explores truly alien aliens is “A Fire Upon the Deep” by Vernor Vinge. I really like how a lot of concepts are presented in a way that initially lets you sort of figure out whats going on before too much exposition is used to clarify alien ideas.

Finally, I need to recommend David Brin’s books, like the uplift trilogies or oven his weirder stuff like Kiln People. He does a good job of establishing a technology or social convention and building a world around it.

I choose to believe that that is not a list of three similar things, but a list of different ways to be remembered.

Do you want to be remembered as dilettante competing in a crowded field who managed to have the right combination of skill and luck?

Do you want to be remembered as the one collosal idiot with a cult of personality, who claimed to work for humanity but only ever dipped us into a kessler syndrome and helped set the conditions for the Bell Riots?

Do you want to be remwmbered as the inventor of a revolutionary technology in desperate times that single-handedly averted the doomed fate of humanity?