How about The Expanse or The Martian? They’re both relatively hard sci-fi that focuses mostly on our own solar system.

The Martian tells the tale of a man stuck on Mars and his ability to survive on his own whilst those back on Earth figure out a way to get him back. Both the book and the film are great so you can’t go wrong with either.

The Expanse covers more of the local system. Earth and Mars are on the brink of war, whilst others live out near the asteroid belt, Jupiter and beyond. It goes a little sci-fi later on but it’s an inherently human story that has some great characters living in a time when space travel is still dangerous but achievable by humanity. It starts a little slow but ramps up brilliantly and has a nice conclusion that wraps everything up pretty neatly. You’ve got 9+ books, a 6 season TV series on Amazon Prime, and a newly released TellTale video game, all of which are well produced and worth investing time in.

Dune is an example of massive world-building with a tons of jargon, but you still liked it? It seems that this post is saying you don’t like books like Dune, so how did you manage to enjoy it?

Have you tried Asimov’s short stories? ‘I, Robot’ is mostly logic problems presented in a dramatic way. Good read.

Try some cyberpunk stuff, it’s great “local” sci-fi, with hardly any of that muck you don’t like.

“Neuromancer” - William Gibson
“Snow Crash” - Neal Stephenson
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” - Philip K Dick

I suggest Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The whole series is good but each is stand alone. There is a world and it’s in space but the stories are people scale.

I’ll throw in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Both classics that are great page turners. Take place against the backdrop of an intergalactic society but remain focused on singular planets and their societies (well if you include their anarchic moons). Great characters with meaningful relationships. Left Hand has more of an interpersonal focus, Dispossessed more societal, but both amazing in their own way.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

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This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Ursula K. Le Guin is an example of a writer that does deep but focused worldbuilding. Her sci-fi books tend to be about a single planet, sometimes two like in The Dispossesed. You could try that one or even better start with The Left Hand of Darkness. I like how she sets up various unusual alien factors (geopolitics, biology, society, natural environments) and lets them interplay but also without forgetting a plot.

Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead are both classics with little world building.

Maybe take a look at post apocalyptic sci Fi (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction), as it includes a lot of interesting futuristic tech, but it is mostly limited to earth. There’s probably another category where things like blade runner fit too

The Three Body Problem trilogy, especially the first two books.

Trying to avoid too many spoilers, the first book is about a Chinese scientist investigating a mysterious threat. It’s not too heavy on world building, and it’s set on present day earth.

Second book, The Dark Forest, is about how this impossible threat is dealt with, and I think it’s one of the most fascinating things I’ve read.

I think the third book, Death’s End, went overboard quite a bit, but it’s still a good one.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Culture series by Iain M. banks. Much like Dune there is a ton of world building that occurs in the novels but it’s not the focus of any one novel. You can read them independently and still enjoy them. The concepts he tackles in the novels were way ahead of their time and his prose and s second to none. The novel Consider Phlebas is typically where most people start, but I started The Player of Games.

Red rising