Follow your heart once you read enough of the scifi you will roughly be able to guess the publication date based on the tech in it.

Especially since you said you are looking for works with a sense of the numenous. We got those from the 70s when authors tended to get acid and experience wonder directly. Now then of recent vemtage we have them were the authors can see into the future enough to recapture a sense of wonder. But in the middle it felt like they really didn’t have any true imagination