Shared world has done some world building and brings (in the case of FR and SW) a big audience. With your own work, you're more creatively free. In a way, the shared world stuff has a high floor but a ceiling.

My favorite new character isn't new, but more fleshed out - Gadd, the alekeep at the Tunnel. He's got him some teeth and tats. His history is hinted at in Discourse, and I plan to explore it more in later books.

I enjoyed The Mirage by M. Ruff. I'm reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Princess Of Mars right and loving it.

Fantasy allows for less rigorous worldbuilding and more vigorous exploration of moral questions. Sci-fi is opp.

I loved The Weird (one of the stories in it inspired Blackalley in Discourse).

I try to pester Christian Dunn from time to time. As soon as my schedule allows, I plan to make a real pest of myself and get some hot, slippery Chaos action.

With young kids (I have four including the newborn) times passes weirdly for me.