Usually, when I am reading a book, I either get into it and read it in a few sittings, or I get bored with it and put it aside. "Trouble on Triton", which I read under the title "Triton", didn't fall into this pattern, instead being a book that I enjoyed reading...but took months to finish, putting it aside for weeks at a time. It is not a typical science-fiction novel, and contains many long pages of philosophical discussion, that, while interesting, is hardly page-turning, pulse pounding suspense.
I first learned of Samuel R. Delany while researching Ace Double Novels, which is what I consider the best science-fiction. Delany broke into the field by writing for Ace Doubles, and the fact that he could write in a restricted, popular format meant that he really earned his bullshit when it came to writing more niche novels like this.
Our protgonist, Bron is a metalogician on a domed colony on Triton, a moon of Neptune. The colonies of Triton are run as a series of cooperative communes and non-coercive government organizations that are described in some detail, without ever giving the reader a complete idea of how the entire thing fits together. Some aspects of the social structure, as well as the technology that makes the settlement possible, are described, but never clearly. (Which is, of course, realistic: in real life, people don't describe the underpinnings of their society with As You Know, Bob asides). But despite the fact that this book was written in the past, and set in the future, it felt comfortable to me. Bron is a techbro, who switches between regaling a female co-worker with his theories of everything to sexually propositioning her and then firing her when she doesn't go along with his proposition. He then meets a microtheater group and slums with them and falls in love with a woman named "The Spike". People play an intricate board game a la Settlers of Catan, and our white, heterosexual protagonist Bron butts heads with his gay and black neighbors. There actually is a plot, with planetary intrigue and sabotaged antigravity and for reasons that I, and the characters couldn't really ascertain, a trip to a hipster restaurant in Mongolia. The book has two appendixes, one of them written out of universe, one of them written in universe, and neither one of them really sheds that much light on what this text was about.
So, for me, I will just say this book is clearly about Portland, Oregon at the turn of the century.
Also, while in many cases I believe in putting aside authorial intent because it is objectively hard to know, in the case of this story, the fact that Delany was a homosexual, African-American man writing about gender and class discrimination means that certain parts of the book that might appear dated should be read as clear social criticism.