The Killing Star

First of all, this book is a total nerdgasm of scientific and technical ideas taken to their logical conclusions – especially as related to space and to life and its possible distribution in the cosmos. One interesting speculation is that earthlike planets may not in fact be the most likely places to generate life.
It also has some stuff (less convincing IMHO) on social, religious, and psychological ideas in relation to the future of the human race and even life itself.
Finally and most importantly, this book explores a very chilling answer to the the Fermi paradox.
The story itself is kind of disjointed but a lot of the ideas are mind-blowing. Solid four stars.