This is open to indie too–there’s a lot more great indie work out there than people talk about.
I think for me, I’ve really loved Gideon the Ninth. It’s such a FUN book, and I think it’s the first science fiction book I’ve encountered that’s also fantasy but also set in “our future”.
(Star Wars doesn’t count. It’s in a galaxy far, far away after all.)
The two sequels are great too. The most recent one, Nona the Ninth, kinda put to rest my fears that the author couldn’t write a gentler, kinder viewpoint or world. (The first two books are kinda grimdark in some ways. Like–everything’s shit then we all die, then our corpses get raised from the dead and used in necromancer fights. Nona shows us a more hopeful world.)
Also I’ve just started “to sleep in a sea of stars” by Christopher Paolini. Published 2020. As I said I’m not to deep into it, but so far it’s an alien encounter story. Starting off as a bit of a downer, but it’s still early days. So far so good.
Is it better than his awful early fantasy books? I punted on liking those and bought them as a set, but I reallly hated them. Before that I was tempted by “to sleep in a sea of stars” but, once burned twice shy!