My first foray into sci-fi books was the Halo series with the Reach Prologue to the game.

These scifi authors have provided me with great entertainment over the years:

Kim Stanley Robinson
Neal Stephenson
Dan Simmons
China Mieville
Iain M. Banks

Older generation but still producing:
Robert Silverberg
William Gibson
Gene Wolfe
C.J. Cherryh
Fred Saberhagen
Joe Haldeman

What i dont like is the "science as religion" approach to sci-fi where supposedly it only works if the science is real or possible--kind of pointless for a fiction story. Just using the term "sci-fi" is supposedly un-pc. You are supposed to say "SF" when talking about "respectable" science fiction.

1968 had the two sides of the coin for movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey..visually striking--but not exactly an accessible film. I still dont understand the point of it.

The other is Planet of the Apes. Both have philosophical content but go in completely different directions.

I love it when the gorilla guard is blasting Heston with the water hose and says: shut up you freak!!!

It's a madhouse. A madhoooooouse!

I like the term "speculative fiction". That would cover a lot of ground from magical realism to hard science.

<<1968 had the two sides of the coin for movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey..visually striking--but not exactly an accessible film. I still dont understand the point of it<<

It was about the ascension of man into a purely spiritual being (aka pure energy). BTW in the actual book(s) the monoliths name is Lucifer. Clarke is virulantly antiChristian and makes no bones about it in his books. Even in Childhoods End the aliens witnessing the transformation look like our traditional pictures of Satan, horns and tails included.

If you can get by that, he has written some great SF and was the one who first conceived of a sattlelite staying at a fixed point in space above earth(geosynchronous). All modern communication birds as based on his theories.

<It was about the ascension of man into a purely spiritual being (aka pure energy).>

**
that is the most succinct breakdown of it I have ever read.