The Revalation Space series by Alastair Reynolds is pretty good. I also enjoyed Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan; haven't had a chance to read the remaining books in those series yet. Vernor Vinge is brilliant IMO, particularly his last 3 books, but seems to write about 1 book a decade. I also like David Brin most of the time, though he sometimes has trouble ending his books.
For older stuff, I don't think anything compares to Dune. When I was younger I just liked the first books and didn't like the later ones, but re-reading them several years later I got much more of an appreciation of where he was going with the later books - too bad his son and Kevin Anderson botched the last one so badly.
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