More lighthearted, but not necessarily better. And I do love the Culture novels.
I think in some ways seeing these themes being explored in a world that is more recognisably our own has a different impact that feels less abstract somehow.
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Would recommend Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed as well if interested in manga/comics at all. Less explorations of gender but as a view of post/transhumanism there’s some great stuff there.
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Unfortunately there aren’t any great works of fiction set in it (there are some novels but they’re supposedly not very good), but obligatory:
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Think I generally prefer the escapism of worlds more removed from our own 
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Funny one, this. As far as written SF goes, cyberpunk is a historical thing. It flourished in the 80s and was effectively dead, or at least assimilated into the wider field, by the mid 90s. So any of the themes you mention are going to be explored in the way people were thinking about these things thirty years ago, and not in keeping with how we approach those terms in 2019. I’m struggling to think of a decent female character in the cyberpunk corpus, for example.
You might be better off looking at modern works that have a bit of cyberpunk in their DNA, something like Infinite Detail by Tim Maugham for example.
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etc.
(it really is a shame that this universe is almost exclusively represented in tabletop games, because it’s incredible for gender and ethnic diversity on top of everything else)
Chevette from Virtual Light and All Tomorrow’s parties was a strong female character if I remember rightly. Admittedly it’s been a long time since I read those books now so time might have something different to say.
She may well be (also a long time since I’ve read them), but I’d quibble that those books aren’t cyberpunk as such. Gibson has been quite strong on female leads since the Sprawl trilogy, Cayce and Hollis in the Bigend books and Flynne in the Peripheral. Can’t wait for his new one, supposedly due this year.
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2010 (featuring Roy Scheider not Schneider @Scagden ffs heh) isn’t that bad. It’s just not as good as 2001 and of course expectations were too high or else it was just dismissed on that basis.
Obviously has dome rough bits but I’d say it’s as good as The Expanse really in terms of acting and execution.
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Ha! Like I care about spelling or any of that bollocks!
Oh. Yeah.
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I just feel like the man who starred in Jaws should be as far away as possible from being confused with the man who’s been shit in every film he’s graced (Rob Schneider)
Does he have 
s in his house in 2010?the only thing I really remember about that film is s
I don’t really recall TBH. Obviously 2010’s biggest problem is the collapse of the Sovient Union vs USA political stuff. It’s featured in 2001 but in a way you can mainly ignore.
You can’t ignore reggie perrin. Not even when he’s a soviet person.
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Coming to the end of House of Chains (Malazan 4) - I have enjoyed it and the structure/writing continues to be better than the first book, but it’s still flabby. It could be a really tight 650 pager, rather than a loose 1000, but I guess a lot of folks like that. I realise things have moved on a bit, but weird top think that Lord of the Rings can be 1250 in total, and have a ton going on (even with plenty space for slower stuff at the start and end).
But my big problem with this book has been the use of FGM as a plot point/character pointer/etc. Not really needed, and some white guy from Canada inserting it into a fantasy novel isn’t a great look.
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Woah, I was thinking of starting that series but now I’m a bit hmm at what you’ve said there.
I guess page count itself isn’t as useful as I seem to recall LOTR is 1000 pages of tight font and also complex writing.
I actually just did some digging and it’s quoted at 455,125 words. I just recently finished Words of Radiance which is 1328 pages but 419,485 and I’m going to say right now that it’s a lot easier to read than Lord of the Rings.
But you’re totally correct that length of books is a bit of an issue. Words of Radiance is overlong, something that is really brought home by the Edgedancer novella he has between it and Oathbringer that shows Sanderson is being over-grandiose with Stormlight. Lord of the Rings never felt to me like it was indulging in narrative words, even in its slower passages.
I would ask you don’t colour the whole series based on this, yes I agree he could have used a plot device less rooted in reality to get across the same point/issue but it is not a huge part of the book and although it is pretty clear what he is referring to it is not explicitly described or detailed. Also it is a series that has very strong female characters throughout, including the one who experiences this. The world they’re set in is a brutal place. I’m not making excuses for him, I just wouldn’t want you to miss out on what has become my favourite series of fantasy novels because of a relatively small section.
They are long and some of the novels could be trimmed without losing any impact but once I’d got into the mythos and terminology I never flagged once and I’m not often a rapacious reader.
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I re-read LotR last year, and I was surprised at how readable I found it. Page count isn’t an indicator of quality in general to me - worth a warning to someone who might not read loads if (as in this case) you’re looking at something like 9000 pages for the main series, but some people love getting immersed in a world for a while. Maybe my use of ‘flabby’ was a bit clumsy - ‘luxorious’ perhaps? It’s not that it feels badly or wastefully written, just that for me personally, I think I’d prefer it cut down and focused a bit, into the 600-700 region rather than 900-1100. Horses for courses I guess.
Regarding the female characters, I find he’s right on the edge. Some are well written, some are a pretty cliched, but then his male characters are the same, and it is an epic heroic fantasy saga tbf, and written 20 years ago. I do roll my eyes at certain descriptions though.
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I fully support your pages/word count thing, don’t worry. I would probably find LotR a lot more readable these days too, TBF.
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As a result of podcasts I’ve discovered people can get really fixated on pronouncing the names in sci-fi and fantasy stuff correctly. Or rather ‘correctly’ I guess. Seems weird in a world where there are multiple ways to pronounce proper nouns and a host of other types of words in English. I just reckon you say the names as you like and leave it at that.