Diamond-Hard Science Fiction?

This question is basically asking for ‘the opposite of Star Wars’. I do like Star Wars (especially Empire) but I also like really technical, unromantic fiction with obscure premises that aren’t cribbed from mythology and Joseph Campbell templates. I actually enjoy stuff that basically violates all the ‘canon’ rules of how you’re ‘supposed’ to write a story, because I think the ideas are interesting in and of themselves whether or not they conform to apeling archetypes and tropes.

I’ve read a fair amount of science fiction, including the ‘hard’ stuff but with a couple of exceptions I have seen almost none of it that really sticks close to the laws of physics and principles of engineering. Most of the ‘hard sci fi’ just violates different rules of physics, getting into more esoteric (and possibly more unlikely) stuff instead of the usual mass/energy violations.

The stuff that does steer close to physics/engineering/biology tends to be very much not ‘action oriented’, stuff like Hal Clement’s Half-Life which is basically a novel about the Center for Disease Control encountering weird oil and almost getting killed for their trouble. Part of this is probably because any human involved in realistic space combat would die pretty quickly, but I was wondering if you had any suggestions of science fiction novels that deal with space warfare in a plausible way instead of “WW2…in Spaaaaace”?

I am often tempted to think that, given the distances and costs involved and the alternative uses for resources, that ‘Spaaaace’ will basically never happen except for near-Earth orbit and maybe some Lunar stuff. I would not be surprised if in the year 2400 we have superhuman cyborgs with AI minds, fusion reactors and everyone still lives on Terra.

So that’s another question: have you encountered any science fiction which has conservative treatments of space travel and colonization is there? Given the size and suitability of Earth (not to mention its existing development) as opposed to anywhere else we could plausibly go it seems entirely likely that human beings (or their nano-swarm vomiting cyborg heirs) would still choose to stay right here on the third planet from Sol even if they have diamandoid plastics and X-ray laser guns. Yet almost all science fiction assumes that high-tech = space travel, which really doesn’t follow at all since space (beyond Earth-related infrastructure) is almost the worst possible place to invest your money. I mean, how many mineral resources exist on the moon if you’re not looking for slightly radioactive glass dust?

The Expanse (both the novels and the TV show) are fairly “hard” sci-fi for the most part, but are also a space opera mixed with somewhat Game of Thrones-style politics. There’s a couple of things you’d have to look past - the Epstein drives that allow reasonably quick travel throughout the solar system are impossibly efficient, for one, and the show cuts corners with the science now and then to speed things up and keep the show on budget. But the nature of the existential threat (comparable to Game of Thrones’ White Walkers in a way) might turn you off, as it violates the laws of physics, however the characters discovering that it seems to ignore physics as we understand it is a huge plot point, so I’m not sure what your feelings on that will be.

It does fit the “space warfare” bit that you’re looking for pretty well - crash couches and a drug cocktail called “juice” that allows passengers to survive high-G maneuvers, fighting that takes place over long distances with rail guns that rip through the entire hull of the ship including the depressurization that would occur (without the “sucking everything out of the room like a vacuum” trope), near-combat guns that are computer/AI controlled rather than manned by a human gunner, etc.

Give it a shot. You may enjoy the books (Leviathan Wakes being the first) more than the TV show, just because, like I said, the show has to compromise now and then with the realism/hard sci-fi aspect (one particular example of orbital mechanics depicted on the show is pretty glaring), and after the first book the existential threat I mentioned has more and more of an effect on the story, which kind of kills your “diamond-hard science fiction” request depending on your feelings on how (or if) non-terrestrial entities can be depicted in hard sci-fi, but it’s worth a shot.

(I tried to be as vague and spoiler-free as I could when talking about the “existential threat” in the series, but I had to at least bring it up just in case that kills the “hard sci-fi” part for you.)

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy probably fits the bill too. I don’t think it’s got much in the way of space battles, but to be fair I only read part of the first one before I realized I wasn’t interested in reading 5 solid pages on the way they designed the Martian calendar to sync with Earth’s and other extremely detailed technical stuff of a similar nature.