now even the unstable is year[s] behind even relatively mainstream competing distributions

I'm not sure how you can claim this. I run Debian Unstable on my desktop and all the packages I am familiar with are within one minor version number of the lastest upstream version.

I haven't seen this book mentioned yet, when it deserves to be on list of the best science fictions: Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World By Haruki Murakami Also absolutely anything by Harlan Ellison is great, whether it be his sci-fi or not. Also Masamune Shirow could be noted for his comic books Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell.