Ursula Le Guin, her standalone books include The Dispossessed, Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness. Warning, all those books are short but very very thinky.
Octavia Butler, Wild Seed.
Neuromancer. Yes it is part of a trilogy but it doesn't end on a cliffhanger so you don't need to read the following two books. (Though you should want to.)
Any of the Heinlein juveniles are good. Rocket Ship Galileo, Tunnel in the Sky, Podkayne of Mars, Starship Troopers.
Fallen Angels (Niven/Pournelle just FYI, they are far right in their politics and were at the time of the writing of the book climate change deniers) is actually not bad, but I'm a sucker for meta, so ymmv. Also Barry Malzberg but his stuff is much, much, much harder to find.
Howard Wladrop, Them Bones.
Robert Silverberg, Dying Inside.
Rudy Rucker's White Light isn't to everyone's taste but I didn't mind it. I'm not a fan of how he frames his fiction (why did everyone in the 80s have to have a manifesto, seriously).
Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling. It's not great, but it passes the time. Same with Heavy Weather, which was marginally better.
For horror, Wetbones, by John Shirley (note that this is REAl horror not the usual pablum that passes for horror these days).
Greenhouse Summer, Norman Spinrad. Climate change taken to its logical conclusion. Eerie when you consider we are actually facing this very scenario in our lifetimes.
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. If you read no other book on this list read that one!
Re: Rec me sci-fi books, pleaaaaaase?
Ursula Le Guin, her standalone books include The Dispossessed, Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness. Warning, all those books are short but very very thinky.
Octavia Butler, Wild Seed.
Neuromancer. Yes it is part of a trilogy but it doesn't end on a cliffhanger so you don't need to read the following two books. (Though you should want to.)
Any of the Heinlein juveniles are good. Rocket Ship Galileo, Tunnel in the Sky, Podkayne of Mars, Starship Troopers.
Fallen Angels (Niven/Pournelle just FYI, they are far right in their politics and were at the time of the writing of the book climate change deniers) is actually not bad, but I'm a sucker for meta, so ymmv. Also Barry Malzberg but his stuff is much, much, much harder to find.
Howard Wladrop, Them Bones.
Robert Silverberg, Dying Inside.
Rudy Rucker's White Light isn't to everyone's taste but I didn't mind it. I'm not a fan of how he frames his fiction (why did everyone in the 80s have to have a manifesto, seriously).
Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling. It's not great, but it passes the time. Same with Heavy Weather, which was marginally better.
For horror, Wetbones, by John Shirley (note that this is REAl horror not the usual pablum that passes for horror these days).
Greenhouse Summer, Norman Spinrad. Climate change taken to its logical conclusion. Eerie when you consider we are actually facing this very scenario in our lifetimes.
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. If you read no other book on this list read that one!
That's all I can think of. Happy reading OP!