OK, as a counter to my post about something you wanted to like but couldn’t get in to, what is something that you love and want to introduce to more people? (I nicknamed trying to get more people into your fandom as “fanpushing” a while back, hence the title)
For me, it’s the comic Saga. I love all the world building and the art, and how it’s continually setting up everything, but still manages to make we scream, “NO!” at everything happening because I’m so emotionally involved. I love the characters, the background, the invented languages (there’s a major one that is based on Esperanto), the tragedy of the star-crossed lovers and how things keep going even when that story meets its tragic ending because life goes on. It’s one of those gritty, crap sack world SF stories that focuses on the humanity (for lack of a better word) of the people in the world.
Despite the first book winning the 2021 SPSFC (admittedly, a much less well-known competition than the SPFBO), I almost never see the Primaterre series by S.A. Tholin mentioned. They are doorstoppers, but very well paced, imo: I inhaled the first two books. If you like space opera that manages to avoid a lot of plot tropes, give the series a try!
(Sidenote: if you’re put off by the “cosmic horror” label on the first book, I recall there being a couple of mildly gory scenes, but it’s mostly in the realm of “unfathomably alien” rather than trying to scare.)