I'll second pretty much everything SkyFire said, although I haven't read any of Stross' stuff yet - must now seek it out, if our tastes are that similar.
Lee&Miller's stuff is flat-out the BEST space opera ever written. Period.
C J Cherryh wrote an amazing number of great books. Downbelw Station is the center of it all - the Earth Company sent out STL ships to explore the galaxy and establish colonies, mostly huge space stations, and things were good, for a while... until the colonists discovered ways they could be independent of Earth. Then the War began, and politics happened, and now Earth is isolationist, Union - a strange and alien society based on mass slavery of genetically engineered human clones - is advancing, station by station. And Earth has abandoned her Fleet to fight and die on their own...
There's also The Pride of Chanur, set in the future of that same universe - a small tradership takes in an alien refugee who's wanted by every faction in their part of space... because he represents a vital new world that could tip the delicate balance of power in their Compact: Earth.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Lee&Miller's stuff is flat-out the BEST space opera ever written. Period.
C J Cherryh wrote an amazing number of great books. Downbelw Station is the center of it all - the Earth Company sent out STL ships to explore the galaxy and establish colonies, mostly huge space stations, and things were good, for a while... until the colonists discovered ways they could be independent of Earth. Then the War began, and politics happened, and now Earth is isolationist, Union - a strange and alien society based on mass slavery of genetically engineered human clones - is advancing, station by station. And Earth has abandoned her Fleet to fight and die on their own...
There's also The Pride of Chanur, set in the future of that same universe - a small tradership takes in an alien refugee who's wanted by every faction in their part of space... because he represents a vital new world that could tip the delicate balance of power in their Compact: Earth.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.