OT: Some Good Sci-fi Suggestions?

[JAFisher44]

Ok, just to help narrow the range of suggestions, I am mostly interested in far future sci-fi. Space ships and stuff. Gritty near future stuff is ok, e.g. William Gibson style stuff.

I am really not interested in alternate history, and I do not consider that to be sci-fi. I have already read all of the Timothy Zahn Star Wars books, which I must say were pretty good considering that I don't really like SW that much. Niven is one of my childhood heroes and I have read most of his books, most of them several times. I like some of David Webber's books, but I really don't like the Honor Harrington books.

Anyway, I think I will try out some of the suggestions here. Of course feel free to keep them coming.

[kalthalior]

Check out David Brin's Uplift Saga.

http://www.davidbrin.com/

[Caduceus]

The first trilogy of the uplift war was good.

Never got into the second group.

I would recommend "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons (which is chased by 3 other books). It is the Canterbury Tales of sci-fi in my opinion.