The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. This didn’t really float my boat, I suspect the difficulty of translating from Chinese is significant, it is not just the straight translation but all the cultural references that are hard to carry over.
Dune by Frank Herbert. Read ~45 years ago (BTW: I am old), upcoming movie motivated me to reread (Chalamet was born for this role). The book is still good but not perfect. Herbert’s imagined world is fascinating. He rushes thru the story — in today’s world, “Dune” alone would expand into 7 books à la Game of Thrones. Some very topical themes. The last scene is just goofy and off, let’s hope that gets a better treatment in the movie. But overall still a very interesting book.
The Escape Room by Megan Goldin. Eh. Too much deus ex machina.
The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. Fun tale of alternate history with clockwork robots. Very different set of guiding principles than Asimov’s.