I quite enjoyed the Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter recently and it looks like they are turning it into a series. Should hit a few of the things you are looking for.

The Manhattan Hunt Club
John Saul

Bump -__-

Check out John Dies at the End. Judging from what you've told us, I think you'd like it. It began as something that the author, then working two jobs (data entry at a law office and data entry at an insurance company) just farted into the Internet, and so it's a bit rough around the edges, but I still rather like it. It's got a sequel as well, This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It, which comes from less humble origins (the roaring success of the first book), and as a result it's more focused for the better and for the worse.

EDIT: While I'm at it, I might as well recommend The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's the first book of a trilogy (the second one is out already, the third on the way), and though it's a further cry from what you're looking for, there's some interesting shit in there. A warning, however: the first one-third of the book is particularly perplexing because of his (in my opinion) slightly annoying style: everything is opened to the reader by demonstration rather than explanation. Then again I have read some 1950's sci-fi where everything is explained in great detail but not a whole lot actually happens, so I guess I should not be complaining.

I know that you said you don't want high fantasy, but The Malazan Book of the Fallen isn't high fantasy. It's dark fantasy :D.
Also you can read the classics of sci-fi: Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Orson Scott Card etc

I recommend "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett, it's a stand alone book in the Discworld universe and a brilliant parody on religion, one of the best Discworld books in my humble opinion.

YES.

While less sci-fi and more horror, Uzimaki is a fantastic Cronenberg-esque horror manga. The most fucked-up thing I've ever seen, anyways. Made Videodrome look like a walk in the park by comparison ._. (oh yeah, and it has fair dashes of cosmic horror thrown in for good measure). I'd read it online!

Also, I just finished Dark Gods, a collection of four short stories by T.E.D. Klien. Pretty good stuff, heavily influenced by Lovecraft. Like much of Lovecraft, most of the horror is suggested rather than explicitely described. This approach falls a bit flat in one story (Petey), but the other three are extremely creepy.
Nice one. I also liked Gyo by the same guy.

I actually watched and loved the John Dies at the End movie (for better or for worse). I didn't know they they were based on books though. I will definitely check them out. I guess I would probably like The Quantum Thief as well. I have read far more comics than books in my time. I like action I suppose.
You had me at hello.
The movie poster makes it look it very appealing. Would you recommend it if you have seen it? Downloading the manga right now.

The action is not the problem per se, because there is a limited (but well-paced) amount of that. The problem is that when a new term is introduced, you have no idea what it means until the characters have used it in practice. I do appreciate how Rajaniemi doesn't underestimate the readers' intelligence and lets them figure out the concepts and the working behind them, but it does make for some hard reading at times.

Oh. Thanks for specifying. I hope I don't get too confused then.

Haven't seen the movie, only just read the manga two months ago. The manga is so great, though, that I doubt a movie adaption can top it (Itoi's drawings being so disturbing that I doubt any CG effects could rival it). May be worth a watch, though. Have fun! :3

Ah, that takes me back to when I read A Clockwork Orange (the original version, not the cut-down American one). Only after I'd finished the book and turned the last page did I discover that there was an appendix explaining the meaning of all the Nadsat words in the book. By then I knew the meaning of them all from context, but it would certainly have made reading the book an easier task.

I've read A Clockwork Orange, too, and I had two advantages: first of all, I had noticed the appendix when I checked how many pages the book was (a school project with a page minimum, so there you go), and secondly I have a decent understanding of Russian, from which many of the terms were derived. Rajaniemi hasn't bothered with an appendix on either book (I'm guessing the third won't have one either), and I have no idea where any of the terms come from. Apart from the Finnish ones, obviously, but that didn't really help me out.