I need some hard sci-fi to read. I've blown through most of Stephen Baxter's books (great stuff), about 90% of Ben Bova's Grand Tour series, and a scattering of stuff from Heinlein and Clarke. I like these guys because they usually abstain from magical FTL drives and button-toggled artificial gravity. I like my science, and bonus points for fiction with actual Shuttle/Soyuz/ISS tech.
Alastair Reynolds - "Revelation Space"
Revelation Space. London: Gollancz, 2000. ISBN 0-575-06875-2
Chasm City. London: Gollancz, 2001. ISBN 0-575-06877-9
Redemption Ark. London: Gollancz, 2002. ISBN 0-575-06879-5
Absolution Gap. London: Gollancz, 2003. ISBN 0-575-07434-5
The Prefect. London: Gollancz, 2007, ISBN 0-575-07716-6
Peter F Hamilton - "The Night's Dawn Trilogy"
The Reality Dysfunction (1996, published in two volumes in the U.S." Emergence and Expansion), ISBN 0-330-34032-8
The Neutronium Alchemist (1997, published in two volumes in the U.S." Consolidation and Conflict), ISBN 0-330-35143-5
The Naked God (1999, published in two volumes in paperback in the U.S.: Flight and Faith; the US hardback was one volume), ISBN 0-330-35145-1
For me it was a great stuff.