Well I don't know if this would fall into what you are looking for but David Weber's Honor Harrington Series is pretty good along with stuff he's done with John Ringo, and Steve White.
HH throws pretty much everything into the pot, political greed, and intrigue, social stuff, Space Naval Combat, Some Science Fact [although at times I feel like throwing a calculator at David], plus it has character's that actually evolve and age, as well as "the horror" characters you like getting killed quite a bit.
All around good series, oh there is also the various BOLO books done by several different authors including Weber, and Ringo. And Ringo's Posleen Wars [although I would probably suggest avoiding Cally's War], and his other series he's writing at the moment as well, sorry can't remember the name. Oh and a hard to find little trilogy by James Axler called Earth Blood which is more post apocalypse than SCI-FI.