I'll get this straight, I'm not the biggest book reader and I'm trying to change that. I did have a reading spree in around 2021 and that's about it.
I really do love urban fantasy where the world is set on earth, but the future—stuff that's pretty damn common in manga, video games, light novels and shows.
But I'm really tired of the aesthetic of tecno cyberpunk with neon lights. I'm looking for something with with a distinctive aesthetic…for example the copper steampunk that's typically reserved for books inspired by the 1800's but somehow in the future? That's a lame example. Just something that isn't cyberpunk inspired.
My only other preference is that I likely won't enjoy something with hetero romance or smut. I do enjoy female protagonists/women dominated casts and adult casts too, but I can deal without those things too—I know my preferences are bit specific, so I'm not expecting many answers. I'm a bit picky since I have never been a big novel reader, my bad!
by WaterloggedRoot
3 Comments
Brother Brontë by Fernando A Flores. Takes place in a former tech metropolis that has since been abandoned and left to rot. Mostly female, especially queer female characters.
A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys is a near-future science fiction novel about first contact with aliens who want to evacuate humanity from a climate-ravaged Earth. Humanity is divided among the remains of the Corporate World and the autonomous Water Clades. It also features different social and cultural arrangements even before those modelled by the Aliens.
Have you read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson? He wrote the massively influential Snow Crash which helped define cyberpunk and the Diamon Age is his move beyond that into nano-culture in a Neo-Victorian/Confucian age. It’s a bit strange and I don’t kow how well it will have dated, but you might like it.
You might like Midnight, Water City by Chris McKinney. It’s a futuristic hard-boiled detective sci fi. No real romance that I can remember and the setting is fairly unique. It’s a trilogy if you decide you want more after the first book.