Book recommendation: space exploration stories?

Northern

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Hi.
I'm looking for good space/ planetary exploration stories to read and I'd like a recommendation.
Currently I'm just about finishing Wayward Galaxy on audible. Great book, I love the style, great story, already preordered the second book.

While it ticks most of my boxes, it does seem to focus on the drama/military aspect of it while I'm looking for something with more science/exploration/mystery.
Perhaps a story about a landing on some extrasolar planet, with more emphasis on exploring the life on the planet, exploring the quirks of the planet, stuff like that.

It needs to be a modern book, too because old science fiction builds on older science, so I prefer something modern...

Any book/author recommendation that would fit this bill?

Thanks!
 
Deathworld & sequels by Harry Harrison

Any one of a number of Jack Vance novels e.g. Big Planet, Marune, Alastor, Throy. Couple of dozen more, easily.

The Martian by Andy Weir
 
Goldstar by Zach Hughes
Ghost by Piers Anthony
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Excession by Ian Banks
 
Hellspark by Janet Kagan - it is a science outpost on an unusual world. A member of the team dies and they call in a sort-of special investigator. So there is a lot of trying to work things out and also focus on advanced body language - very well done and readable, with a lot of information and a bibliography at the back which is also well worth the read.
 
To Be Told, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers.

It's a standalone novella, set within a small exploration vessel. It's a touch existential, but written by the daughter of a NASA science educator.

I'd also second Adrian Tchaikovsky. Brilliant writer, great mind, and a lovely person, who deserves even more readers.

You might look at Nancy Kress' Crucible series, as well, if I'm remembering correctly. There is a military element to it, but there's also a lot of exploration -- of the planet, and of the differences in biology and social structure compared to what humans are used to.
 
Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama is probably the best exploration book, in my opinion.

I would also recommend Ben Bova's "Grand Tour" series.
 
It needs to be a modern book, too because old science fiction builds on older science, so I prefer something modern...
Not sure what the limits are here. The age of the science doesn't necessarily relate to its accuracy - some old hard SF is accurate today and a lot of today's SF is inaccurate. I'm guessing you just mean you don't want people running around the swamps of Venus (or even dealing with a fall of moondust) so, trying to avoid that and using 1969 as a magic book date, maybe

James White - All Judgment Fled (1969). Superb investigation of a mysterious spaceship akin to Rendezvous with Rama except very very different.
Robert L. Forward - Dragon's Egg (1980). All-time classic meeting with a neutron star... and its inhabitants!
Robert L. Forward - Flight of the Dragonfly aka Rocheworld (1984). Great exploration of a double world.
Greg Egan - Diaspora (1998). This is (or should be, but isn't sufficiently recognized) an epochal classic of post-human galactic exploration.
Hal Clement - Half Life (1999). Mission of Gravity (1954) is better (and hasn't really been superseded by events) but this less-old tale is a good hard exploration of space in hopes of saving the species.
Greg Egan - Incandescence (2008). Another of Egan's mind-bending "alien Einsteins struggle to understand their mysterious existence" sort of tales.
James L. Cambias - A Darkling Sea (2014). The least old classic of this sort I've encountered. A great tale of a strange world and its inhabitants.
I would also recommend Ben Bova's "Grand Tour" series.
I was going to mention his Mars (1992), myself.
 

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