| I highly recommend Ramez Naam's Nexus Trilogy.[1] I think Naam's take on the genre hits a lot of the bullet points others in the thread have cited as desirable characteristics in their ideal sci-fi. It takes what is in my opinion the most reasonable approach to the shiny vs non-shiny duality and simply includes both. From the devastating effects advanced technology could wreak against a group of tech abstaining monks to the spiritual enlightenment that might be obtained if humans could communicate mind-to-mind, I think the series does a great job of illustrating the best and worst of what the near future could conceivably have to offer us. It's possible you'll find it to be too inline with SV's idealistic picture of a future where truly outlandish things like truly conscious artificial intelligences or indefinite life extension are actually within the realm of possibility -- but despite Naam's choice to feature these same kinds of "tech miracles", I think it still manages to stay remarkably down to earth. Despite the grandiosity of some of the possibilities described it all had so much detail so as to still feel plausible and even familiar at points. IIRC Naam took a fair bit of care in basing most of the tech and predictions in the book on actual scientific opinion of what might be possible given humanity's current scientific understanding and rate of progress. Despite having to suspend my disbelief at a few points, I enjoyed the hell out of it and count it as one of my favorite sci-fi universes up there with Stross' Accelerando and Banks' Culture series. Here's hoping you do as well! [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642710-nexus |