Consider Phlebas, American Gods, Permutation City & The Left Hand of Darkness

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks was a fastpaced space opera romp in
the middle of a pan-galactic cultural war. It packed a lot of
interesting ideas into a lot of action. It had a bit of a Lord of the
Rings effect for me with how many characters it tries to maintain, but
the main few were pretty vibrant, the only problem I had with them was
their excessive display of super-human feats. It was a long book but
went really quickly because it tends to go from action scene to action
scene with very short downtime in between.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman was ok, but I wouldn't have picked it as
a Hugo+Nebula winner; if you've ever read "Small Gods" by Pratchet and
him, it has a lot of similar tropes, mainly about gods existing
because people believe in them. After reading it the book club didn't
have a whole lot to say about it; the ideas are pretty self contained
and the plot doesn't leave a lot of questions open. Still entertaining
though, and in one tiny passing insight it gave voice to a feeling I
have all the time: the TV shows that you haven't watched religiously
but that are still popular (for me: Seinfeld, Simpsons, CSI...) you
always somehow manage to catch the same episode of, over and over.
I've seen the "Furry" episode of CSI like 10 times!

Permutation City by Greg Egan was the weakest of the lot I'd have to
say, just because the plot premise was so flimsy, and I don't even
want to bother describing it here. It was redeemed for me by the
character portraits it paints using that premise: people who exist in
an isolated universe with infinite computational power and true
immortality - what would they do? One compelling image that stuck with
me was a guy who created virtual environments for himself that
reflected this infinity, climbing down a never-ending skyscraper, the
top in the clouds above, the bottom obscurred by clouds below, climb
climb rest, climb climb rest, his mental state looping happily without
variant for an entirely indefinite period of time. I've found myself
echoing those feelings at times recently: playing pool and drinking
with Jaffar in Vienna, biking and stopping at traffic lights, and
doing a 3-person box drill with a disc, moments that could've lasted
an arbitrary length of time and afterwards I never would've known how
long they exactly took.

The most recent is Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin (most
badass name/title combination ever, btw). It was an excellent novel
with a couple new ideas well explored (primarily androgynous humans
who only feel sexual drive every 26 days for about 4 days, during
which their first contact with others determines which gender they
become for that "kemmer") - very poetic and philosophical, incredibly
detailed and entertaining; if you're only going to read one of these
4, this should be it.

--k2