(I do have to mention, though, that I love those long vistas of Alnaschar.)

On a random whim I recently picked up the manga collection of Planetes by Makoto Yukimura, and was surprised to discover it was my new favorite thing. Planetes turns out to be a genre I've always been in love with despite the lack of any titles in it at all -- the futuristic slice-of-life story. Rather than elite soldiers or adventurers with a great destiny, the protagonists of Planetes are orbital garbage men, tasked with cleaning up the run-down satellites and abandoned rocket boosters that clutter near-Earth space in the year 2074. The characters are interesting and appealing, but just as much a part of the story's greatness is its background: in the late 21st century Earth is dependent on raw materials and fuel from space, so space travel and lunar cities are a regular, everyday thing. But the technology is also regular and everyday -- no stardrives or antigravity, people get where they're going with chemical rockets and spaceplanes. I'll just finish up saying, if you like MoS, check this out.