>>95865891
Poul Anderson is definitely towards the harder side of sci fi. He loves his spec evo, characters are usually scientists and will frequently expound on scientific principles as understood at the time, or if they don't do that they'll THINK that they WANT to and you'll get to read it anyway. It can get pretty dry, but there's a certain charm to it too. It's an interesting universe.

And for the anime fans this one has a bubbly just-out-of-college girl who falls madly in in love with a schlubby middle aged scientist, whose wife just kind of accepts getting cucked and lets him do it. And later on he beats up a military officer in his prime because something something trained with space centaurs