Downbelow Station
Hugo winner (1982) and the cornerstone of the Alliance-Union future history; its station-level realism is the acknowledged foundation for The Expanse school of space opera.
Series Guide
Alliance-Union
Cherryh's vast future history of merchanter families, station politics and the cloned azi of Union — interstellar geopolitics with the economics done properly.
In the Guide
Cyteen
Hugo winner (1989) and a regular pick for the best SF novel about cloning ever written; its psychogenesis arguments anticipate decades of behavioural-genetics debate.