Delta V by Daniel Suarez is about asteroid mining in the near future.
Old time writer Poul Anderson has dozens of alien races and space merchants. "The War Of The Wing Men."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote a lot of YA novels that still hold up as stories. Obviously, there are going to be a lot of details he missed, but "Between Planets" is a good adventure story and "Tunnel In the Sky" is the original version of The Hunger Games.
Legion.
Orphan Black.
Black Sails.
[off topic]
"The Guns Above" by Robyn Bennis. What if Napoleonic armies had an unlimited supply of helium? The author does a great job of describing 1800's airships and their tactics.
Fun book.
The Soviet Union had race tracks and casinos.
People are always going to want something for nothing.
It's a package deal.
I saw a movie called 'The Stunt Man' many years ago. Fantastic movie I would recommend to anyone. It was made in 1980 [apx] and is about a Vietnam vet who is running from the law. He hides on a movie set and gets involved with the lead actress and the crazy director.
There's a scene in the movie where the screenwriter and the stunt man are talking about the actress. "Did you think she was a virgin?" Then the screenwriter goes on to recount the time he flew to Guatemala and paid $1,000 to sleep with a 14 year old virgin.
When the movie was made, it was a cute throwaway line; a joke about a silly middle-aged man being silly.
We have to accept that we're creatures of the culture that created us, no matter how much we don't want to be.
One thing I always liked about the original Mandarin in the comics is that he had a big "M" on his chest.
But the casual anti-Asian racism of the 1960s was a trip.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/22/a3/1a22a3665a6d1b68bb26ea09ddd73027.jpg
Before 2016 I could pretend that the vast majority of my fellow Americans were good hearted, mostly rational folks.
Plenty of towns in America had Middle Eastern enclaves.
General observation.
As people lose more and more real freedoms [lower real wages, more crowded roads, small retail stores swallowed up by mega-corps] they cling to false freedoms. They will keep those phones on, because it's their right to, dammit!
Just to add. If you find one you like, don't avoid it because it's low cost. Brought the cheapest model at Staples and it's still going great. Cost is often an indicator of quality, but not always.
Behind the scenes detail I love. They had a 'clone double' who who would read the lines when two of the sisters were talking to each other. The double had to play as many characters as the lead, and often gave her ideas on how to do a scene. The double was seen in a few of the later episodes.