Huh. I don’t think I ever heard someone call this series hard sci-fi where I could hear them; the most common recommendation was related to its Chineseness, which, as Zvi claims, definitely delivers.
And I’m not sure I’d take Niven as the archetype of truly hard sci-fi; have you ever tried Egan? Diaspora says sensible things about philosophy of mind for emulated, branching AIs with a plot arc where the power laws of a 5+1-dimensional universe become relevant, and Clockwork Rocket invents alternate laws of special relativity incidentally to a story involving truly creative alt-biology...
Huh. I don’t think I ever heard someone call this series hard sci-fi where I could hear them; the most common recommendation was related to its Chineseness, which, as Zvi claims, definitely delivers.
And I’m not sure I’d take Niven as the archetype of truly hard sci-fi; have you ever tried Egan? Diaspora says sensible things about philosophy of mind for emulated, branching AIs with a plot arc where the power laws of a 5+1-dimensional universe become relevant, and Clockwork Rocket invents alternate laws of special relativity incidentally to a story involving truly creative alt-biology...