> Many readers come away from the first book stunned at how believable the technology feels compared to something like Star Trek or Star Wars.

I cannot believe this to be true. While I'm wary of the "no True Scotsman" aspect to the term "hard sf", TBP and it's sequels are about as hard as jello.

Honestly, the author would have been better off allowing things to just be hand wavey instead of poorly explaining everything.