The content committed to print needs to be worth it. I'm a fan of old-school sci-fi, the kind that asks how technology might enhance or undermine the human experience and how that might change, collapse, or raise society to new heights. Right now, the entire genre is in trough of unimaginative, vacuous current-day allegory. Most published work is entirely wrapped up in gender, sex, race, and labor politics. Everything is a stand-in for current political movements and figures, where the setting may as well be set-dressing. No curiosity, no prescience, no fundamental philosophical questioning.

My only reprieve is that sci-fi short story omnibuses contain maybe 20-30% true sci-fi that's exactly what I'm searching for. But buying a print novel off the shelf got to the point where it was wasting my money. And I can only re-read the classics so much.

Waiting for the "sci-fi was always current-day allegory!" sophomorists to flood the comments.

Sci-fi was always a current-day allegory. That's why I prefer cyberpunk: rather than allegorical, it tries to be literal and concrete.

But cyberpunk is not imaginative in the way you're looking for. I can appreciate that.

What are some examples of the old-school, non-allegorical stuff? Maybe Exhalation?