Neal Stephenson has a book that assumes such an advance -- it's not a key component of the story, but definitely features large in the title : The Diamond Age.
I've loved everything Neal's written, though I may begrudgingly agree with various critics that suggest he really doesn't do endings very well (REAMDE and Anathem are much, much better on this front).
I've tried recommending various books of his to different friends, and I've concluded that I have basically zero predictive capability in terms of working out who would like which of his books. Maybe I've simply failed to grade them properly on the geek scale, but it feels like some of his more technical books appeal to people who don't normally like deep tech, and his deeply social commentary style novels appeal to people who normally push back against strong societal allegory. Which just makes me love his stuff even more.
[0] https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6089/william-gibso...
It seems his "formula" is that the first 90% of the book is world building (and he's absolutely amazing at that), then the last 10% is the actual story, but packed into an impossibly small space, so it feels like everything happening at once.
In REAMDE and Anathem, the split feel more like 70/30, but he "compensates" by having so much more story, so it's still everything happening at once, but for much longer. It almost feels exhausting.
Seveneves tries a different formula, it's more like 40/10/40/10. Still, I'd wish he'd nail a story that actually goes on throughout the novel, with the world building interleaved.
REAMDE was also similarly received by my other half -- a case in point to my earlier observation about being unable to predict which NS book matches (my understanding of) someone's literary tastes.
Seveneves also backs up my low-quality self-assessment capabilities -- my other half loved that too, despite always pushing back on 'science fiction'. I read an astonishingly annoying spoiler in an HN comment soon after that book was released, and I've subsequently been very cautious talking about it. Suffice to say the ending of that book is frustrating primarily because it's still not clear if there may be a follow-up work.
I wholeheartedly disagree. As the great (and unfortunately late) Ursula Le Guin wrote, I write science fiction, and science fiction isn't about the future. I don't know any more about the future than you do, and very likely less.[1]
Predictions are cute and all, and I enjoy reading them, but SF certainly can't be judged by how predictive it is.
I really wish Vinge would revisit that universe - Deepness in the Sky was great but it was a prequel of sorts.
That's sad. Recommend it and they either pick it up and read or don't. That's up to them but why not give someone a chance to be inspired, experience that magic, and think about these things?
There are more non-programmers than programmers. They spend money on and vote on things that have an effect on what's possible in the future too.
I read it as a teen, am a non-programmer, and still think about it two decades later. Everything we read can help in how we approach the world, especially as the years go by and we experience more of it.