Oh, you're one of those Trek fans...

Consider Phlebas. I've wanted to read the Culture series for years. It's an odd one so far. I've seen a lot of people advise to not start with Phlebas and I can see why.

I am enjoying it but parts of it feel very tangential. About halfway through so far.

Same for me. Surprised to see it back. Figured it was gone forever!

I'm about 80% through Pandora's Star by Peter F Hamilton. It's okay. Went in with quite high expectations since it comes up a lot but man, so much of it could be cut. The man likes to incessantly ramble and describe the most mundane and uniportant details. And there's a lot of viewpoints. Which I'm not necessarily adverse to (I've read Wheel of Time) but it does chop and change quite a bit and mostly just as something exciting starts happening, it cuts to a different POV. I'll probably read the second book to finish the story but doubt I'd read another of his.

The series, from what I understand is only loosely connected as in it's set in the same universe. The next couple in the series are supposed to be really good.