And yeah, getting good characterization and good world building together in the same novel is really hard. Most things I read do a moderately okay job balancing those two, but when it over-indexes on the world-building I struggle to connect with the story being told.

I think the more introspective characterization is a more modern / post-modern trend, so I tend to be a little less picky if I’m reading something like Herbert, Asimov or Heinlein. I just don’t think this narrative style was in the zeitgeist yet, but I guess I have higher expectations for more contemporary works.

For sure - it’s like jam bands. You can have these incredible musicians improvising together, but I don’t have any interest in listening to it. I can appreciate the skill and artistry, but also say “it’s not my thing”.

Such a great topic, thanks for making this post!

I’ve heard a lot I agree with already (ditto on the Becky Chambers / Wayfarers rec for alien morphology and culture).

One thing I haven’t heard yet (maybe it’s not a perfect fit for the question) - poor characterization and an over reliance on world-building / technology. This is how later Neal Stephenson books (Reamde) have felt to me, where the characters feel like flat automotons but there will be pages and pages about some minute technological detail. Consider Phlebas is another offender, although I do think some of the latter Culture books do better. The final mention would be a number of Peter F Hamilton books.

Because this is all a matter of taste, I find this interesting on a more personal level. I’ve noticed my own preferences change as I get older, away from the neat tech aspects and more on the characters and their respective arcs. And even their arcs don’t need to be tied to external plot beats, but can be intensely personal (e.g. Sissex’s struggle to understand whether they want to be a parent in Wayfarers). I also really liked Amos’s arc in the expanse where we get an idea of where he comes from, and is able to find companionship with Clarissa (who has a pretty good arc herself as well).

It’s a very similar dynamic in my fantasy tastes these days as well - my favorite series is Realm of the Elderlings. Whether Sci-fi or Fantasy though, it has been relatively difficult to find books that better align with these tastes. Definitely open to any recs from others!

/r/subreddit_simulator, IIRC

Huh, interesting. It very well might be - I am on the dbzero instance, which generally does not defederate like .world or beehaw. Couldn’t tell you why .online is defederated from that community instance, although I assume there is some record of that somewhere.

!bestofredditorupdates@lemmit.online

It appears to be related to fiber optics, here’s the best resource I found:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aZum_COPUek

Great topic, thanks for posting!

Relevant username (Final Architecture)

Others in no particular order:

• Skyward Quadrilogy. A new YA Sci-Fi from Brandon Sanderson. Some similar world elements to final architecture actually, but in a pretty interesting divergence. Really great ship combat pulled off as eloquently as sword play in Stormlight.
• Reckoners Series. Another genre departure for Brandon Sanderson, and also in one I don’t typically pursue (cape stuff). But I think it really worked, and Sanderson’s talent for hard magic systems fit well with the superpowers concept in the books.
• Ten Thousand Doors of January.

I also feel compelled to mention giving up with Peter F. Hamilton. I’ve read lots of the Commonwealth ones years ago, but struggle with the self-insert, male wish fulfillment that all of his characters seem to suffer from. I tried one last time with The Night’s Dawn trilogy, but dropped it halfway through the second book. I was mostly along for the ride with the novel spiritual elements, and I also liked the Biomechanical / Ship AI technology. But the characters were all just pretty meh and I had a hard time caring. Also, the Al Capone thing was pretty strange lol.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Waters

Legendary artist / filmmaker. His movies are not for everyone and can be tough watches at points but also hilarious and with some great characters.

Check out 404 media! I’m a big supporter of independent media, but there’s been a real lack of high quality, competent tech journalism for the last few years.

They launched in the last few months and I’ve been pretty impressed with their coverage so far.

Even their coverage though could be called at the intersection of current events <> technology. When I want pure tech news, I usually watch YouTube channels that specialize in related topics ( like Asionometry for silicon design or Dave2d for device reviews).

Do it! I just made the switch (using PopOS as my distro, AMD CPU, 1080ti GPU) and haven’t had much trouble with my extensive Steam collection. The biggest issue so far was Bioshock Infinite which actually runs native and I had to edit some configs for texture pools. SteamVR / Index has been a little unstable but seems to generally work (I don’t use it enough to be sure if it’s Linux or my hardware getting old).

SteamDB has been a excellent resource for checking compatibility and game specific tweaks.