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Ok. Let me start by saying I'm well aware of how difficult I'm making this: I'm looking for sci-fi recommendations based on feelings.

I've been on a big audiobook kick lately. I'm presently about half-way through Blood of Elves, just finished the first Ciaphas Cain book (which I had read before but wanted to revisit, and see if I could recommend the audiobook to friends who are interested in 40k), and before that the Dwarves by Markus Heitz, and the phenomenal Bobiverse series by Dennis Taylor, and I've got this itch for something in particular that I'm having trouble articulating.

I'm looking for something sci-fi, pitting human and/or human like intelligences against something bigger and more alien. Maybe it's a war, maybe it isn't? Something like the scope of Freespace and the gravitas of Grey Goo.

Thoughts, Dakkanauts?

First of all, have you read the short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream?

Second, a lot of recent space opera has featured post human intelligences struggling it out. Try some Ian Banks novels out, although I recommend starting with something that isn't Consider Phlebas. Maybe Excession?

Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star features a war between humans and an alien intelligence that is one of my favorite villains in sci fi, although be warned that the author likes his gratuitous sex scenes. Gridlinked by Neil Asher is somewhat similar, with a detective trying to fathom some ancient bioship's purpose, although I found it less satisfying overall.

Oh, and absolutely read the stories in the collection Story of Your Life And Others by Ted Chiang, especially "Understand". "Understand" seems the most likely to give you what you're looking for.

Check out a Ringo's space opera series (wanna say one is named Citadel but it's 3 books at this point I think). Eric Flints "Empire" series he writes with another author is good. Those are off the top of my head.

Startide Rising, by David Brin.

Basic setting of the Uplift books is that humanity is a very small fish, late coming to an established, organized, galaxy and not really fitting into the pattern.

One of my favorite books.

You could try Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

(Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization. )

He wrote a second book (kind of a prequel from the distant past) a few years later called A Deepness in the Sky that's a bit less high concept and more standard space opera but still got plenty of clever thought behind it

You might like Robopocalypse and its sequel based upon what you asked for. It's about what you think it's about.

Fire Upon the Deep and Startide Rising (the Uplift series) are both great, especially if you like interesting aliens.

And I'm adding Robopocalypse to the Amazon wish list.

Have you read anything by Neal Asher? His Polity series and other Works as well are worth looking into. I highly recommend the Techincian as a book to get a insigth into the universe he has created, it also has feelings but not much in the way of good ones(for the most part) but lots of despair, horror and fear. And a doze of paranoia from time to time when the books describes some of the more unhinged characthers in said universe

 Hulksmash wrote:
Check out a Ringo's space opera series (wanna say one is named Citadel but it's 3 books at this point I think).

I'll second this suggestion; the three books in question are, in order, Live Free or Die, Citadel, and The Hot Gate. A very excellent set of stories; I only wish there were even more of them!

As for my own suggestion, I think a series that might fit what you are looking for is Star Carrier, by Ian Douglas. Humanity is fighting for survival against an alien menace with superior technology, and is having to use unconventional tactics to be able to pull off victories. One thing I love about the series is how grounded it is in real-life physics, or at least as grounded as a space opera can be. The effects of near-lightspeed travel (and impacts!) are pretty realistically described, and the aliens feel truly alien rather than being the standard Star Trek style "random humanoids with similar motivations and behavior to actual humans despite coming from other planets". There are seven books in the series so far.

Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence (there's loads of 'em now, but Timelike Infinity and Ring are probably the best place to start. Raft was the first one written, but it's sort of off to one side in the overall series of events. Flux is in the same series, but is fairly standalone.

I'd also suggest Alastair Reynolds. The Revelation Space trilogy and the other books in that setting have the kind of feeling you describe, but also Pushing Ice.

Also David Zindell's Neverness. There is a war, but it's mostly about exploration - of the external universe and the internal soul - and consciousness.