SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I read a great deal, especially on the nights that I cannot sleep which are legion. I am a fan of sci-fi and Fantasy, Particularly of long and pretty involved pieces. Hard Sci-fi, such as Cobley, Brin, Benford, Bear is good.
Imaginative sci-fi; Iain M banks, Dan Simmons, Issac Asimov, floats my boat.
I also love Fantasy tales. Michael Moorcock, Tolkein. Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Dan Simmons, The mystery of Edwin Drood. Fiest, Hoffman, Jordan, The riddle masters of hed and so many others that I find them difficult to recall.

I, for a while, grew disenchanted with these genres as there was little that was new and really good. I went back to my roots and started re-reading the sagas and histories. folk and faerie tales, the classics. I miss the days of reading high fantasy and good sci-fi (for thinking people, not for children) It was suggested that I come here to gain recommendations.
I look forward to your recommendations, they can be of the oddest sort, the more complex and difficult the better, for me.
I would also love if you could recommend a few new authors to me as I am a little of date. Thank you all in advance for those that take the time to respond.

The Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin, starting with The Three-Body Problem. Starts off hard sci-fi, though by the end of the trilogy it's more "out there". I think this is pretty much exactly what you ordered in terms of science fiction. It's intelligent, imaginative, innovative and complex (especially the third book). The first book won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and I'll be astonished if the third book isn't nominated in 2017.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Mostly hard sci-fi. I was saying in another thread recently how this is an inherently polarizing book, because Stephenson will occasionally throw the rules of storytelling out the window and interrupt the narrative with lengthy info dumps on whatever fascinating bit of technology or science or sociology he feels like throwing in. If you don't mind that, I think it falls right in line with what you're asking for ("long", "pretty involved", "for thinking people"). It was one of my favorite books of 2015.

Actually lots of Stephenson's other work might also interest you. His book The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is also one of my favorite sci-fi novels. It's hard and imaginative sci-fi.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. This is fantasy, but not like fantasy you've read before. It's not what you asked for in terms of fantasy books, but it's imaginative, unique, complex, and in some ways difficult. It was one of the most acclaimed SF&F books of recent years, and was my top book of 2015.

These aren't really "original" recommendations, though. These are some of the most talked-about books in SF&F in recent years. Somebody who reads more than I will have to chime in if you want something off the beaten path.

You could try The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. There are six books so far, starting with Leviathan Wakes. It's a space opera series. They're in the 5-600 page range with complex, although not dense, plots.

And Alastair Reynolds would most likely be a great fit. I really liked Revelation Space, which is the first in a trilogy. 6-700 pages each, I think. Closer to hard sci-fi, and they're space opera with some mystery components..

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever is probably my favourite fantasy series. The world-building is incredibly good, the vocabulary is very rich, the story is complex and the 'hero' has leprosy. They are very dark- Covenant is very far from a typical fantasy hero, and things get fairly bleak at times. It's still my favourite though- if I had to pick one fantasy world to live in, it would be The Land. And there are 10 books, so that might keep you going for a while.

I haven't read them yet, But Maurice Druon's series The Accursed Kings The Accursed Kings Series Books 1-3: The Iron King, The Strangled Queen, The Poisoned Crown is highly recommended by George R.R. Martin as a long, complex work.

If you enjoy high fantasy, Guy Gavriel Kay is a wonderful writer. I'd try Tigana, or his The Sarantine Mosaic.

For science fiction I'd suggest Kim Stanley's Robinson's Science in the Capitol series (Forty Signs of Rain)...it's climate change scifi, and similar in tone to David Brin's Earth in a lot of ways.

And if you haven't, I'd also re-read the first six of the Dune series. I find that I've enjoyed it in different ways when I haven't read it for a while. Frank Herbert's The Jesus Incident (Pandora Sequence) is also very under-rated, I think.

If you haven't read Connie Willis, try her Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel series)- they range from depressing to very funny to very intense, and she is a master at plotting. She's won more Hugos and Nebulas than anyone else, so she knows how to write a book :-)

And if you like David Brin, I'd try Robert J. Sawyer. He's written a lot of great stand alone books, but I really love the Neanderthal Parallax.

Let's see...

L.E. Modesitt Jr. might appeal to you. With his fantasy works, I recommend The Magic of Recluce as something very different than the usual. A completely different approach to magic than your typical fare, for example.

Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga and Margaret Weis's Dragonlance Chronicles are more traditional, but good. With Feist's admittedly probably being the stronger, though later books in his same world get a little less amazing than Riftwar.

Recently recommended to me by this group was The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and it was very much a good choice. While it is a bit Space Operaish in some places, it actually handles the idea of aliens and alien cultures better than anything else I've read(or at least, that I can think of at the moment). The characters in it as so utterly brilliant that I can't imagine someone not enjoying it, as well.

David Weber's Honor Harrington series is fairly hard military sci-fi, which definitely requires one to use their mind. I've had mixed results recommending it to people, some love it, others can't get past the bits of math and tactical problems. Though, the fact that is has a VERY good audiobook version has often helped those people.

Ancillary Justice is absolutely a thinking person's book, but I haven't read the additional two books in the trilogy yet.