Unrelated to any of the above comments, but Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series is worth a read too.
I enjoyed the initial 2 books of the Riverworld Saga, but ot got a bit heavy going in the middle, with the Dark Design. And the the ending book felt a bit rushed, and had a few loose ends.
But the concept is awesome.
I rate Ben Bova quite highly - many of his SF novels are based in the near future - have just finished Farside, based on building interferometric telescopes to scan near earths.
I think he wrote quite a few SF novels around Mars and the Moon
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle:
Foot Fall - an Alien Invasion of Earth
Mote around Gods Eye -The story is set in the distant future of Pournelle's CoDominium universe, and charts the first contact between humanity and an alien species
Ring World series - A giant ribbon circling a sun, with replica planet geography on the inside surface from many location, many alien species transplanted
And for a good solid easy read hard scifi with space battles, good against evil, etc, is the Lensmen series by EE Doc Smith.
I haven't read the Expanse novels or the Dark Matter comics but for something similar you could try the Gap Series by Stephen Donaldson. He also wrote the excellent Chronicles of Thomas Covenant which is a good fantasy read if somewhat heavy going.
The Gap series basic story (no spoilers) is that a single person (Holt Fasner) has managed to create a corporation that basically controls space via his own privatised/corporate police force and has his own desires that are not beneficial to the human race. On the borders of human space are the aliens (Amnion) who want to absorb human kind via a mutagen to make humans like themselves. The us vs them is akin to a cold war with subversive plots etc. The main story/plot/arc is that a space-police officer captured (and turned "rogue") by space-pirates who are all in turn manipulated by everyone whereby they cant trust anybody yet they will end up being responsible for saving humankind.
other books/authors to check out are: Anne McCaffrey (also check other authors she worked with - Elizabeth Moon,Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Jody Lynn Nye) someone mentioned the Pern series which is a more fantasy based but she has also written some good sci-fi stuff too although it can come off a bit dated (written 1960-80's) and young-adult orientated sometimes.
Brain/brawn series - the most well known of these novels is the ship who sang . Basically new-born/young humans who have physical disabilities or terminal illness but have the right (mental/emotional) talents are trained to become the embedded “brain” (cyborg) of things like spaceships, hospitals, spacestations etc. They are teamed with a “brawn’ human who has all physical abilities and they perform the functions that the brains can’t do due to the lack of mobility. Each novel is generally independent/standalone of each other and follows their relationship/adventure.
Planet Pirates - a young girl (Sassinak) is captured by pirates. she eventually escapes and throughout the series ends up become captain of a military/police ship with her driving goal being that of ending piracy and those in political power aiding it. Dinosaur Planet ( 1, 2) - in the same universe and does have some cross over with planet pirates but can be read separately from each other. If reading both series it can get a bit boring with repetition of events. this series follows Lunzie who is a doctor and a great great... older relative of Sassinaks. Throughout the series Lunzie encounters "problems/adventure" where she ends up in "coldsleep" for extended periods. The main story/plot is good but the sub-story of what happens to people when they enter "coldsleep" (evacuation pods) and wake up to find they missed 3 generations of their own family (eg are 150 years old by birthdate but look/physically 25) and missed all those family events.
Freedom Series (Catteni Series) - Aliens invade earth enslaving humankind and occupying/stealing everything. The main character (Kristin) ends captured alongside an alien she meet (Zainal) and is dumped on a "colony' planet alongside slaves from earth and other planets. The story follows that Kristen learns that the invading aliens themselves are slaves and they go about freeing themselves from their oppressors. Out of all of Anne McCaffrey's books this feels the most dated with an obsession to coffee and brand-naming such as Motorola.
Robopocalypse (Daniel H. Wilson) - a rogue AI computer goes rogue and decides that outdated humans need to be eliminated and replaced. Its a bit Terminator like but is set more in our current time. From memory I think each chapter reads a bit like a calendar/diary timeline.
Tik-Tok ( John Sladek) - If you like weird, macabre, and satire then this is a good read. A robot finds he is not controlled by the 3 laws of robotics and goes about doing what pleases him. Killing and creating his own wealth for fun commences. And (if I remember correctly) at one point becomes vice president of the USA
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