As a massive Heinlein fan I’ll say Starship Troopers because I think that’s a fascinating discussion about what you owe your country or the price of citizenship. Since Heinlein is my favorite author I’ll pick another one as well.. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick. I know he had drug issues and this book is an interesting look at the cycle of drugs and addiction and the ending was tragic but also very realistic. I like that the movie included his tribute at the end.
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A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. short vid summary. It's a space opera which explores the concept of technological singularity (by the guy who coined the term) on a galaxy wide scale. A simultaneous planet-surface plot involves an alien race of intelligent, pack-mind dog aliens, encountered by marooned human children. Vinge's most recent books were a bit disappointing, but this is his peak era, where not only does he always do an excellent job of exploring the technological ramifications of his ideas, he also invents interesting fictitious rules to help make his theorised universe more plausible. For this series, the imaginary conceit is that the fundamental properties of matter and the universe change depending on how far one is from the galactic plane and nucleus, enabling different levels of sentience and automation at different regions. As such this is known as the 'Zones of Thought' series.
The second book he wrote in the series is a prequel, A Deepness in the Sky, which focuses on the distant past of one of the key characters. It's a book where he clearly made an attempt to improve his character-writing, which pays off, plus there's another interesting non-human race, but the setting of AFUtD makes for a more fun plot for me.
I loved AFUtD. Haven't read Deepness yet, but good to hear it doesn't drop the ball.