I've been reading lately (o.o) and I pretty much just plowed through The Gap Cycle.
... WOW.
The whole series (if you can stomach it) really plays hard on the classic space opera theme, but just as hard on back-room politics. In that manner, there's a lot more interesting stuff going on here than "we're shooting at evil aliens and space pirates." In fact the concept of "good versus evil" is pretty vague here.
I'm also nearly done with Age of Misrule/The Dark Age/Kingdom of the Serpent, but these are fantasy and more linear action. The deep ethical and political issues don't really show up too much, and when they do it's just a short spat with an annoying power structure run by idiots that don't understand how very soon they're going to die (yeah, when you climb to the top at the end of the world, you get a short stay of power unless somebody STOPS the end of the world).
Anything else in the vein of The Gap Cycle that I should read? I've had short stories like Heinlein wrote recommended, and I've read bits of Ender's series (Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead), but these are all lacking. I've heard Dune is all politics, maybe I'll read that; but what I've heard of Dune isn't much any good.
Maybe the problem is you can only do this once... ever.