Beyond Reality discussion

After discovering the Vorkosigan Saga, Snow Crash, Old Man's War The Culture Series, A Song Called Youth, The Expanse Trilogy, Fallen Dragon, The Hyperion books and rereading The Forever War I'm trying to find more Science Fiction novels that combine exciting action with smart/smartly executed story telling. Now to clear things up, by "action" I don't necessarily mean Military Sci-Fi or Space Opera(although those shouldn't be excluded), but I'd like more variety like cyberpunk or present based science fiction.

How about the Liaden Universe (starts with Fledgling)?

Jack Chalker's Rings of the Master series is a lot of fun - a little dated and not especially original plot-wise (computers revolted and took charge of mankind!), but great characters, lots of action, weird aliens, and puzzles to solve. Unfortunately it's out of print, but it's worth looking for.

Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy is another good one, if you're up for some YA; it's EXTREMELY well done.

Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought books (we're reading A Fire Upon the Deep as a group soon, aren't we?) are fantastic.

Ooh, and David Brin's Uplift books. I didn't love the first one (Sundiver) but it's worth reading just to get into the series, because the rest are wonderful.

Well, this is neither cyberpunk or present-based science fiction, but you could try Stephen R. Donaldson's Gap Sequence. The books are The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story, The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge, The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises, The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order, The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die. They were written in the 90s but are still in print and are also available for Kindle (and possibly other e-readers).

Ancillary Justice? It won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus Award, and Clarke this year, and the sequel is about to come out. I loved it.

Sarah wrote: "Ancillary Justice? It won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus Award, and Clarke this year, and the sequel is about to come out. I loved it."

That's defiantly been under my radar for a while, but I don't want to get overloaded with Space Opera.

Its very good
I read it last January.

The Ender books by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind

There is also another set of books from another
point of view
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant

Interesting Series about the rise of Starship Captain
by David Feintuch
Midshipman's Hope
Challenger's Hope
Prisoner's Hope
Fisherman's Hope
Voices of Hope
Patriarch's Hope

Finally Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy
Emergence
Expansion
Consolidation
Conflict
Flight
Faith

I won't trot out a laundry list, but any of Alastair Reynolds' novels, particularly those in the Revelation Space series would easily meet your criteria. Reynolds is an astronomer by training (not sure I'd stretch it to say astro-physicist) and has written some absorbing and thoughtful works that are also suspenseful and exciting.

I was thinking Reynolds also, want to give someone else a chance. Ha

I liked Timothy Zahn's "Conqueror" trilogy. Lots of action, interesting aliens.