This is gonna be the thread where we talk about stuff

I think part of it is what I attempt to get out of reading SF is different from what I'd ask of "literary fiction". I go to SF when I want something alien, that attempts (usually) to actively distance itself from our reality. Case in point with the Culture series setting - Shellworlds, a Culture of Involved species/races that forces earlier-stage civilisations to join the intergalactic platform under their own steam, eccentrically self-appellated spacecraft, and general other fun fuckery.

The entire point of having humans in a setting like that is that it's not meant to be relatable. They're not to meant to have problems I can relate to, because more often than not the kind of crises that occur in literary fiction have a clash of scale against intergalactic wars and galaxy-spanning politics.

If you want me to relate to and feel empathy for literary characters, I'm gonna have to be a hardarse and ask for, at most, one tweak to Reality As I Know It (I say that because Vonnegut is probably my favourite author). I'll still enjoy SF for the romp to far-flung places, but I'm just not capable of the same degree of empathy with its protagonists.

Haha me saying words like I even know for certain what my opinion is on theset hings