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Rationale

  Why is this here? Because reading SF with the same technologies as cyberpunk but with different messages is a good way to "clear the palate" - if you experience nothing but cpunk, you won't be able to clearly identify it from the rest of the world (um, yah, that's nothing like me...). Besides, these are all quite gifted writers, and new technologies, ideas, and cultures are good for you. Also, the cyberpunk fiction movement was a reaction against the forces of conventional SF, which had become very stale and technical, especially in the '70s. "What are you rebelling AGAINST?" is the question, and "Whatcha got?" is not a good enough answer sometimes.

Allen, Roger McBride

Hunted Earth series:

Ring Of Charon

The Shattered Sphere
   Most people get pissed when they lose just their keys...

Banks, Iain [M.]

Against A Dark Background

Use Of Weapons

Banks may well be the best writer in the English language today. These two books are, IMO, the best of the ones I've read so far. Bleak, dark, disturbing, imaginative, well-written, and have surprise endings that really twist the knife in... Not everyone likes AADB, but stick with it to the end before judging it poorly.

Culture:

Player Of Games

Excession

Unculture:

The Bridge

Feersum Enjinn

Very interesting approach to uploading and netrunning.

Benford, Greg

Galactic Center series:

In the Ocean of Night

Across the Sea of Suns

Great Sky River

Tides of Light

Furious Gulf

Sailing Bright Eternity

Bester, Alfred

The Demolished Man

The Stars My Destination

The Deceivers

Bova, Ben

Brust, Stephen

Busby, F.M.

The Long View series

FTL is for wimps. This shows an interstellar empire run by STL ships, and he has the guts to show the EFFECTS of taking the long view. All wimpy FTLers, bow down before Busby.

Chandler

John Grimes books

Dickson

Dorsai

Engling, Richard

Finney, Jack

Time & Again

From Time to Time

About Time: 12 Short Stories

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Kornbluth & Pohl

Gladiator-At-Law

Kress, Nancy

Martin, George R.R.

McCrumb, Sharyn

Bimbos Of The Death Sun

McHugh, Maureen

McLoughlin, John C.

Toolkmaker Koan

Moorcock, Michael

Pellegrino, Dr.James

Flying to Valhalla

*VERY* hard science SF view of STL, antimatter stardrives, and mutual assured destruction. A brief mention of the hazards of genengineering fads.

Killing Star

Pohl, Frederik

The Other End Of Time

Not very good - a poor imitation of an old F.M.Busby trilogy, but tedious and anticlimactic. Nowhere near the quality of his other work.

Rankin, Robert

Armageddon: The Musical

Schmitz, James

Sheffield

Cold As Ice

Sight of Proteus

The Heritage Universe series

Very hard SF with the standard "one implausibility" exception, and very well-written.

Silverberg, Robert

Across A Billion Years

Smith, Cordwainer

Smith, Sherwood and Trowbridge, David

Exordium series:

The Phoenix in Flight

Ruler of Naught

A Prison Unsought

The Rifter's Covenant

The Thrones of Kronos

Stapledon, Olaf

Star Maker

Last And First Man

Steele, Allen

Orbital Decay

A harsh, lifelike view of working in space. The choice of music is a bit passé, but it's a good counter to both the "space is too deadly to be explored and not profitable, anyway" and "space exploration will be safe and pleasant" psychologies that seem so common these days.

Turtledove, Harry

Van Vogt, A.E.

Slan

Williamson, Jack

Wolfe, Gene

Book of the New Sun

Books of the Long Sun