Great book. I'm reading Echopraxia now. My shortlist of hard sci-fi authors that have really interesting ideas about extraterrestrial life: Peter Watts (above)

Great book. I'm reading Echopraxia now. My shortlist of hard sci-fi authors that have really interesting ideas about extraterrestrial life: Peter Watts (above) and Greg Egan. Liu Cixin has also become popular recently, but he's not quite as hard sci-fi and also (in my opinion) not as intellectually stimulating. Still a good read though. Ted Chiang has some decent ET stuff (one of his stories was recently adapted to the film Arrival), but I like his biblical fiction and philosophical sci-fi more.