This is open to indie too–there’s a lot more great indie work out there than people talk about.
I think for me, I’ve really loved Gideon the Ninth. It’s such a FUN book, and I think it’s the first science fiction book I’ve encountered that’s also fantasy but also set in “our future”.
(Star Wars doesn’t count. It’s in a galaxy far, far away after all.)
The two sequels are great too. The most recent one, Nona the Ninth, kinda put to rest my fears that the author couldn’t write a gentler, kinder viewpoint or world. (The first two books are kinda grimdark in some ways. Like–everything’s shit then we all die, then our corpses get raised from the dead and used in necromancer fights. Nona shows us a more hopeful world.)
I really liked the Gameshouse novella trilogy by Claire North.
Some might say it’s not really SFFF but it has some vibes.
I’ve always been of the notion that if it has vibes…welcome to the club.
Excess emphasis on divisions when SFF fans and readers share more with each other than not regardless of what subgenre they prefer always seemed kinda silly to me.