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A Fire Upon The Deep is a fantastic novel for programmers to read, and I think the prequel A Deepness In The Sky is even better. There are some amazing old-school coding jokes in there, like that everyone thinks the universal time counter started at the first moon landing, but programmer archaeologists know it was really 15 megaseconds later.

Neal Stephenson's work is outstanding in my opinion, although some find it polarizing. My favorite of his is _Anathem_, followed closely by _Seveneves_.

Iain Banks's science fiction novels (mostly set in the Culture, but he does have others) are also great.

How can you not mention Snow Crash?

And yes to the Culture.

The Expanse series starting with Leviathan Wakes.

(I second Ender's Game, The Martian, and Project Hail Mary.)

Though Dune is highly acclaimed for its concepts, I couldn’t quite get into it personally.

They’re just too dry for my tastes.

- Hyperion