The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. Enjoy.

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, maybe.

The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood

You might try the Culture series by Iain M. Banks

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series

Try the children of time trilogy by adrian tchaikovsky!

Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Main series has ~10 or so books, plus bunch of short stories and spin offs in universe.

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

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Seconded

If this is deep and well written than all of space opera counts.

Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer

I just finished The Expanse. It's 9 books. I don't know about prose level, it has its moments, but it's a hell of a ride.

The Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisen for sure

I don’t think that’s quite in the same lane he’s asking for, but I completely second that recommendation

Octavia Butler comes to mind as an author; the Dawn series is a good start.

A science fiction reader for 55 years (I'm old), and no one comes close to Banks for me . Quite the most wonderful writer. Patrick O'Brian is the historical fiction author that evokes the same awe(and Terry Pratchett for humour).

Thirded.

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9 books and 9 novellas! All of them EPIC. Such a great story, when I first finished the series, I immediately read it again.

Dan Simmons’s Hyperion novels are probably exactly what you want. But just in case you want a bunch more recs…

Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish cycle (The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, etc.) are more loosely connected, not a continuous saga, but some of the greatest of all time.

William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy is near-future, not epic space opera, but should definitely be on your radar.

I know you’ve been reading Wolfe already, but if you haven’t read the New Sun books yet, be sure to put those on the list too.

And…again maybe not the exact genre you had in mind, and it’s only two books, but Walter Miller’s Leibowitz novels are fantastic.

The Expanse is exceptional. Sci fi almost never has realistically written characters to go along with the science.

John Varley - Titan, Wizard, Demon. Epic, great science fiction

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. As a westerner, I really enjoyed reading this epic that was written from a different cultural perspective. The translations are also really well done. That third book is crazy omg

Although there are a lot of misses, and annoyances, and can be a bit hoaky and juvenile at times...

Wade through the Warhammer 40k books, starting with the Horus Heresy series. Which in summary is the prelude to the 40k series as a whole. The Horus Heresy saga lead into the Siege of Terra books. Of which there are 54 books, and 9 books (more to come) respectively.

There is a lot to read. And a lot of perspectives, motivations, and plotlines that all collapse into a pretty epic story of what essentially is a sci-fi civil war between the forces of "good" and "evil".

And once you've read those (which is already an incredibly challenging task), you've basically completed the introduction to a universe that currently has over 460 books, telling all sorts of stories in the backdrop the Horus Heresy created.

It's pretty wild, and it's got countless great moments and excellent sci-fi.

Second this...

I know OP asked for Gene Wolfe not Brandon Sanderson, and on the 'seriousness' spectrum The Expanse is much closer to the Saunderson end (fun/exciting), but the writing / storytelling is pretty high quality IMO...

Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Mars” trilogy. Well researched and incredibly in-depth.

Dune, first three books

Speaker for the dead branch of enders game books

Three body problem series

Discworld - very good writing, very silly characters

I'd also recommend his Final Architecture series for a story that's more space opera. Same quality writing, but with a shift in sci-fi subgenres.

They aren't directly related, but they are meaty and long with complex, well-written prose: Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner. Near future, prescient.

Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton (2x books in main series)

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (4x books)

Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Cixin Liu (3 Body Problem Series)

Honestly, I've read a lot of other people's suggestions here. None of them come close to Gene Wolfe. The Book of the New Sun ruined other authors for me for years.

Nowadays I can enjoy something like The Expanse, or Children of Time, or Ancillary Justice... but they're not in the same league.

It honestly seems like people are recommending their favorites, or popular titles, but they certainly wouldn't be making the same comments if they've read Gene Wolfe.

I think we're in the same boat - nothing really comes close.

Vernor Vinge

(these are good sci-fi recommendations that I feel are at least well-written enough. I may have a different/lower standard though. I can’t say for sure)

Children of Time. Only read the first book so far but it’s exactly what I wanted. Nice creativity with some hard science but not too much if you’re not into that sort of thing (I’m not). Also it was a 600+ page book I actually thought was worth the 600 pages.

Also important: it doesn’t beat you over the head with world-building. I’m not into world-building very much at all and I’d been getting disillusioned with a lot of the sci-fi/fantasy stuff because of that. Also the book has themes out the ass and I thought it was all executed extremely well.

Alternatively, The Expanse was fun for the 3 books I read of it. I think it’s mostly just a good space opera from what I’ve read and it never blew my mind but it does what it does well. My enjoyment of each book mostly came down to how much I liked the additional characters that dipped in and out of the story.

The Three Body Problem is really good too in my opinion. Haven’t read the third book yet but I think the series is pretty unique and doesn’t come off as derivative to me at all. A more methodical pace than a lot of books but I like em.

Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds had great pieces in place and I liked the writing a lot, but it took it’s time a little too much for me personally. Other than that I’m sure they’re great books.

This is on my TBR pile 📚

Oh man, I didn't know it was a trilogy, the first two books were great! Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.

I love the ideas in the series but the prose is incredibly awkward, even for something translated from Chinese. I loved all 3 books but have seen people bounce off of the first book hard because of the writing style.

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