I posted this on Reddit a while ago and it sparked some really good discussion and recommendations.
I really like The Expanse - as it doesn’t just discuss the attempted terraforming of Mars and the colonisation of the Main Asteroid Belt but also
spoiler
the way that these communities decline when abundant habitable planets are discovered, where life is much easier.
So yeah, what are your best examples?
A friend of mine asked if I’d ever read his stuff, not knowing the can of worms they’d opened. He’s my favorite living author hands down.
For a really unrelated book I think you might still enjoy from the general gist of your comment, The Worthing Chronicles is one I really enjoyed but took me a long time to come across.
I’ll add it to the list. I go through books at a pace of about two a month, and I really don’t wanna run out.
I feel that. I’m always fretting when I approach the end of my current book about what comes next after exhausting so many of the ones I’m interested in.
Another sleeper to check out is The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem.
I’ll have to return the favor now. I hope you haven’t read Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s sci-fi, but the characters don’t know that. It’s like a fantasy story to them, but not the reader. They live on an aging earth, where human society has forgotten most knowledge.