the Three Body Problem series by Liu Cixin (or Cixin Liu - I've seen it written both ways. If there is a native speaker of Chinese (Mandarin, I think?) here who can tell me which way around this should go, I'd be VERY grateful!).
It's dark, the author has a wildly pessimistic view of humanity, there is very little character development, but the books are utterly engrossing. It's science fiction with some of the biggest ideas I've ever seen in print. I can't put it down.
