... read A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge 😀

Actually, I think this book is more widely regarded and probably correctly at that. But I think I personally prefer Vinge's book. I guess my real recommendation is to read both.

I think its a nice example of how the genre has grown in the last 20 years. Tchaikovvsky's book has more nuanced characters, and the book moves away from some of the genre breeziness I expect. Its still "hard sci-fi", you couldn't change the cover and get it shelved on the Literary Fiction table.

I initially bounced of the book because it opens with Kern, an obvious Musk stand-in, and I didn't really want to deal, in 2023, with either a glowing great man capitalist protagonist or not very subtile criticism. But it was much more deft then I was planning to give it credit for.