[Balgair]

That neutron star story is wild. Hard recommendation to read.

One point I have with Baxter is that his premises are just bananas, but the people acting in them are pretty recognizable. To be fair, if the characters were also nutter-butter, no one would read it, as it wouldn't be a story anymore, just a strangely formatted research paper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_(novel)

[gizmo686]

For another life on neutron star: Dragons Egg, Robert L. Forward

[henearkr]

I don't know if you read the other books from the Xeelee series, but the neutron star is probably not even the strangest life form Baxter considered :) I don't want to spoil too much though.

[Balgair]

The Xeelee Sequence is totally crazy.

Not many authors can go the distance from the beginning of the universe, to the end, and then back around again.

They Hyperion Cantos is also good reading. It starts with a re-write of the Canterbury Tales in the far future, and has the pilgrims making their way, not to Canterbury, but to face off with a six-limbed red-eyed spike-covered murder beast that exists outside of time. It ends with hyper-evolved humans and the second-coming facing off against god-like AIs.

Trust, me, it actually works really well.

[thom]

I can never forget reading Titan for the first time. Extremely bleak in many ways but worryingly plausible.