14: Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
Another award-winning book, it is hailed as one of the best space opera novels available. And not just normal space opera, but deeply complex and combined with a real human themes. This human tale about flawed humans has a full set of diverse and compelling themes of romance, action, space battles, AI gone amok, time travel, and much more.
From the blurb:
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.
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