Hard Sci-Fi

Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross, is a somewhat far-future story about a backwards colony world that experiences a technological singularity through the intervention of a mysterious outside agency called the Festival. The story will keep you turning pages, but will also leave you wanting more.

Greg Bear's 1985 novel Eon tells the story of a hollowed out asteroid called the Thistledown that arrives in earth orbit at the start of the 21st Century, when the planet is on the verge of World War III. While seemingly normal on the outside (for a spinning, hollow asteroid), it has the novel addition of a seemingly infinite tunnel called the Way attached to one end on the inside.