I also have mixed feelings with Banks. I really like his idea of the Culture, but some of his books are really terrible. When I read them I enjoyed The Player of Games and Use of Weapons, but I disliked a lot Consider Phlebas and had to abandon Matter after a 20%…

I didn’t know that academia was already bypassing traditional publication systems, but I am all for it. For literature, seeing how in many cases publishers are more into gatekeeping what is published than doing quality control or improving it I am very happy when authors become independent and do everything on their own. As you said, next years are going to be interesting in this sense. Let’s just hope that Amazon doesn’t take over the whole system, as it is already trying to do.

Connie Willis is a SF author I love. Her short stories are very political in regards of gender and sexuality, then you have her long time-travel books and her short romantic-comedy novels.

Aliette de Bodard also has many nice stories (I have only read some of the Xuya ones)

I really liked St. John Mandel books! I will have to watch the TV adaptation

Not Sidekick but definitely Sassy, have you read Murderbot Diaries?

Yes, I found it confusing that sometimes there is a warning which has no consequences, then in anothere you get locked from all previous maps. Also with time-sensitive missions, you can fail a few quests and it is not always specified that there will be consequences if you take too long in your exploration (in a game that is all about exploration)

I never tried video-clubs (well I tried a think called videoclub a few decades ago, but was a very different thing…), online was always in written, which had its good things, but felt pretty disconnected.

It is great that you founded a club! I have the feeling that if I want to participate again I will have to make one too (and will be a SFF one probably)

Really? The few I participated I was lucky that there was a diversity of ages, genders… with everyone participating equally. That is something I have always like about practicing sports, that you get in contact as equals with very different people, while at school or work it is always people pretty much like you.

The problem with these games (like Stellaris, which is also on offer and I would recommend with the same warning) is that the base game lacks many interesting features, which you only get if you buy all the DLCs.

The whole Hainish Cycle from Ursula K Le Guin may fit here, in the sense that all human-like ‘aliens’ are the offsprings of the colonies planted by a primitive human civilization.