[photonthug]

> If anyone knows of any works that idea-dense but written in the 2020s, I'd love to hear about them. Short fiction especially.

Fails for the 2020s part, but check out Greg Egan if you haven't already (his Diaspora is mentioned elsewhere in this thread). Dark Integers is a short-fiction collection. Also Vacuum Diagrams, by Stephen Baxter. These three authors are, IMHO, the absolute pinnacle of hard scifi. But be advised they are definitely kinda optimizing for being idea-dense. For more literary stuff with deeper focus on story structure & consideration of the individual characters, etc, you might want to look elsewhere.

EDIT to say, Dennis E Taylor is more recent and on reflection definitely deserves a mention. Also an ex-programmer-turned-author IIRC. The Bobiverse series is aimed at a wider audience of more casual nerds than the stuff above, and more of a recap of "big ideas" from other scifi without the head-spinning future shock of stuff like Stross and Egan. But it's solid nevertheless and easier to call it "fun". And despite the artistic license with the more dreamy far-future tech that's available to protagonists in the not-so-distant-future.. Bobiverse is kind of a "scifi procedural" flavor, so that probably makes it appealing to people who like stuff like Weir's the Martian.

[OgsyedIE]

Ted Chiang and Sam Hughes are two high-concept writers from the 00s-10s decades yet to be mentioned if anybody feels like looking for more to read.