And preferably without magic.
Damn. There goes my chance to elegantly self-plug. Oh well.
(In defense of
The Celestial Way, I've tried to make the magic within the story be a) believable, b) explainable via the scientific principle. It's based on years of actual real-world research into esoterics, spiritualism, and fine energies, extrapolated into fictional advanced usage. Oh, also, "scientific dragons".)
I don't know any without "magic" in it. Maybe you can try to read Dune books? Or even stargate series (don't know if there book for that)?
For the love of... Okay, Dune is a
good book, but it's outdated as hell by now. It's like people constantly recommend LotR for fantasy reading, even though the genre has advanced
massively since Tolkien. Ditto for science fiction, whether hard or soft.
Pure sci-fi recommends:
The Golden Age by John C Wright, anything by Greg Egan (although his novels are more math/physics textbooks than stories), anything by Ian Banks,
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (plus
Creatures of Light and Darkness, its companion "fantasy" twin),
Blindsight by Peter Watts (it has scientific vampires),
Fallen Dragon by Peter Hamilton, and others that are on my TBR list but I won't recommend them since I haven't read them yet.
And finally,
Requiem for Homo Sapiens by David Zindell. Seriously, that series fucking
slaps. Like, an astroload. Sure, it has some spiritual moments (spoilers, Dune has those too), but it is just so fucking good.
Requiem should be considered "the new Dune" in my very unhumble opinion.
Cheers,
Sagacious