Being European with a grandfather who was one of the few German survivors in Stalingrad, having grown up with a view of my grandparents home that had a wall tha

Being European with a grandfather who was one of the few German survivors in Stalingrad, having grown up with a view of my grandparents home that had a wall that looked different than the others because it had been hit by a bomb I have a hard time relating to your argument. I do agree though that the characters and writing in general could have been stronger. That's unfortunately the trade off with hard sci-fi though. Have you read much other hard sci-fi? You typically have to read hard sci-fi for the ideas because the writhing trends to be mediocre at best. Try reading the average story in Analog and you will see what I'm talking about