I have the audiobook of the second one, can't wait to start it.
As for similar titles I never come accross anything like this. The only one which comes to mind is "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" by Dennis E. Taylor. Its about an IT guy, Bob, whos mind gets uploaded to a computer and a century later the company puts him in charge of a self-sufficient space probe. Bob becomes a space traveller, gathers resources and creates more instances of himself. He finds new worlds, helps civilizations raise and makes enemies along the way while more and more Bobs joins the story through space and time. Its really lighthearted and less serious but I enjoyed it a lot. It has the similar " story throughout the centuries" trope.
The first one was one of the most memorable books I ever read. The idea is so insane, yet works great and I found myself rooting for the spiders so badly.
Steam OS is awesome.
I consider myself a tech savvy person, yet I never felt the need to tinker with my Steam Deck to run retro games or emulate stuff since I have it (1+ year)
The library of games running natively or with minimal controller changes is so big I will probably not run out of games and Im playing more than ever.
I enjoy!