Suggestions for Near Future/Slice-of-Life SF

Victoria Silverwolf

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I'd be interested in hearing suggestions for good science fiction with a near future setting, in which the main focus of the story is what might life be like for a typical person of that time, or perhaps a look at future society in general. (The opposite of space opera/galactic empire type stuff, or action/adventure stories.) What I'm looking for might be something like some of John Brunner (Stand on Zanzibar, etc.), some of Philip K. Dick (A Scanner Darkly, etc.), some of Robert Silverberg (Dying Inside, etc.), and so on.
 
Everything Bruce Sterling published solo between Islands in the Net (1988) and A Good Old-Fashioned Future (1999) as well as The Zenith Angle (2004) (His first three novels were not as near-future earth-based and I didn't like Zeitgeist (2000) or The Caryatids (2009) as much as usual though they qualify. But he's generally great.)

Some of Greg Egan's stuff is way far out, like Diaspora, but much of it would qualify: Distress (1995), Teranesia (1999), much of his short fiction.

Nicola Griffith's Slow River (1995) might also suit.

I haven't read Rule 34 but I'd echo Verse's Stross for some things - it seems like he's trying to step into Sterling's shoes as, in a weird way, Sterling sort of stepped into Spinrad's. As far out as Accelerando (2005) gets, its earlier, better parts qualify and I gather some of his other stuff would. I haven't read much of Doctorow besides a few stories but he seems to work in a similar vein.

Oh yeah - I generally love Vernor Vinge's stuff but I didn't like Rainbows End (2006) anywhere near as much as usual. Still, it meets the criteria and won a Hugo so some people liked it a lot.

Most of these are near-future sociological (objective, multi-party). I can't recall having read a good relatively recent Dying Inside-kind of book (subjective, mostly singular), unfortunately, but maybe you can find and enjoy some of the above.
 

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