Try Neal Asher. Prador Moon or The Voyage of Sable Keech. Not eaxcatly high brow sci-fi but so much superb action so well done!
+1, Having finished Surface Detail recently I moved onto Neal Asher’s Polity universe books. Very good reads.
did anyone read Transition?
I read it last year too, couldn’t get why he didn’t release it under Iain M Banks over here (in the US he did), regardless, I enjoyed it alot.
Favourite ship name has to be: Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints. Infact I think that’s my favourite ship in the entire series. I also really enjoyed Excession due to the inter-mind communications.