Daniel Suarez and Scott Sigler are two really good, relatively new (more so for suarez) sci-fi authors.
Both mostly deal with modern-day sort of sci-fi, and sigler's are more sci-fi/horror, but they're both really good.
I recommend for suarez reading Daemon, and its sequel freedom (these are his only books at the moment, but i LOVED 'em). These books are interesting, it's about a famous genius game programmer who left behind a large series of Daemons (computer scripts set to run when certain events happen), which at first start murdering people, but becomes something much, much larger.
Sigler has more books under his belt, but I highly recommend starting with Infected and Contagious (he's working on the third book, Pandemic). These are about an alien race infecting humans with a creature, basically using humans as the host to birth it, ultimately killing the individual. I won't reveal WHY they do this, but let you find out yourself.
The best part about Sigler's work, is he offers all his books for free in podcast form, available from his website, or via podiobooks.com. I found him recently and have been utterly DEVOURING his works.
Both of these authors are set in mostly current day (around the 20th/21st century, except for two of sigler's books, which are way in the future), and use believable, but fantastic, technology. I know sigler researches the science aspects of things he wants to have/do before he does them, to make sure he's accurate, even though he's embellishing the science. And Suarez worked in IT, so he has a good grasp on computers.
anywho, [/rant]
