Oh, and Iain M Banks. More accessible, I’d say, but no shortage of Big Ideas.
With Banks, the worlds (Culture being a major one) are more fleshed out, but somehow to me not as interesting. I've read several of his books, but somehow didn't enjoy the Culture ones a lot (read Player of Games, Use of Weapons and Excession). I did like the A Song of Stone a lot, but that's not even sci-fi. I'm aware my opinion is quite unpopular regarding Banks.
His sci-fi books (Anathem, Diamong Age, Snow Crash) are not just detailing technology, but the whole society. All of the detailed descriptions about concents and avouts (in Anathem) is without any technology since they explicitly disawow technology.
You seem to have a very specific idea of what constitutes "worldbuilding".
In my mind, every scifi has to do worldbuilding, because they deal with some non-existent worlds - they can't just rely on reader's being familiar with reality. They can't just say "imagine it exactly like today's US, just with faster than light travel". The authors have to describe the setting of the plot to the reader to at least some detail. Stephenson does that in my opinion very well and it's the main draw for me.
His shorts are where he shines, but I’ll admit to having read and enjoyed his entire corpus, down to the man’s withering legal correspondence.
I’ve gotta say I do love the culture series and his sci-fi works, but I have an equal amount of shelf space dedicated to Iain Banks - The Bridge and Whit stand out.
Therefore, I always recommend that people start reading his short stories, and avoid his books. See also: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8805118>
> It’s quite telling that almost all of the movies based on his works have been based on his short stories, not novels.
Because that's easier to adapt to 2h films than a long novel? Lots of short stories become film.
100% solid agree. That's what makes a book worthwhile to read.
I saw The Man in the High Castle series when I had time for webseries, and while it was kinda mid, it had some great aspects.
Suggest more if you can. Need not be Sci Fi.
I also liked "Second variety" which has also been rendered as a audio play IIRC.
And, for the non-sci-fi part, A Scanner Darkly is pretty weird. Has also been rendered as a movie...