>>12032929The Culture by Iain M. Banks. Those are the books that Elon read and inspired him to name the droneships "Of Course I Still Love You" and "Just Read The Instructions" (those are names of ships in the second book)
The series is hard sci-fi, very advances but realistic and grounded in real physics. They're complex with multiple protagonists, timelines and flashbacks, and neat politics of a post-scarcity civilisation,
Start with Consider Phlebas and read then in publication order.
