/lit/ - Literature

>>9915033
It sounds like you want to read New Wave SF from the 60s/70s, where the minimalist white-walled decor is accentuated by burnished metal surfaces, and men and women dress in brightly coloured tunics, breeches and smocks, and the media is projected from small crystals, or little silver ball-bearings, or even on tape mediums (despite conquering space and FTL travel, analogue is still the preferred choice.) This, combined with a flowing prose style.

Philip K Dick is nearest to these, but Robert Silverberg comes to mind because his prose is more mellifluous with that ethereal touch. Some of Jack Vance's SF has the kind of gleaming minimal aesthetic I described, the early 20thC idea of the future of gleaming rooms and conveniences. Alfred Bester too, but his style is more beatnik.

Read Downward To Earth by Silverberg, Demon Princes by Jack Vance (or To Live Forever, for a one-and-done) and Demolished Man by Bester. Or for a safe best read a volume of PKD's short stories from the mid 50s-70s. These stories have the sparking clean sort of settings that I think you're reaching for, as opposed to a grimy setting.

>>9699858
I'm talking about indifference and disinterest rather than dislike. Dislikeable characters and antiheroes can be very interesting: Ben Reich, Cugel, Jaime Lannister.However, I appreciate some works aren't designed to have dramatic clashes of personality, sparkling dialogues, or engrossing character development. Sailing To Byzantium is clearly all about the prose and the setting.

Jack Vance is one of the few writers I have encountered who can do it all; plot, character, and setting.

>>9519179
Haha, very good.