Tangentially related: I recently read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (by Heinlein). It was a fantastic read (IMHO). And it has extra relevance right now with the AI/LLM progress we are seeing.
It’s vague enough in details to still be plausible in one’s interpretation. I think the only dated tech thing is he talks about tapes a bit. And that one death hits surprisingly hard and it’s quite forward thinking though Asimov had similar stuff in his Robots series.
Heinlein was shockingly thorough and accurate with his depictions of the computer systems in play. I've always thought the build-up to the final battle was incredibly detailed and exactly how I would solve those problems today.
The book was written in 1966, and I think it really holds up to modern technical scrutiny, except for a few very specific and very obsolete technologies.
Honestly I just love this story. It has all the charm of a quaint midcentury story, but is still technically competent and compelling to a modern reader. I don't think any of his other stories pull this off quite so well.
Mike is a major plot point in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. He never actually appears though. Not sure I'd recommend that book honestly. He went real heavy on inserting his personal politics, to the point of standing up strawman characters just to give the main character a communist to berate and harass. It really ruined the experience for me.
I have just now learned that there's a sequel to The Cat, To Sail Beyond the Sunset. The Wikipedia summary sounds.... really bad, but Mike has at least a few lines so I guess I'll go read it now.
