I don’t need my sci-fi to be literature, but I need the story to move every ten or twenty pages, or characters I care about. Character development is an alternative to plot development, basically, but to go along side your interesting science bits, you have to give me at least one of:
A) short
B) characters who I care at least slightly about
C) a plot that moves faster than your average snail
The Three Body Problem had none of the above. Although the last 40 or so pages was at least a perfectly good short story in its own right.
EDIT:
> I can look down my nose at David Weber’s wooden and cringeworthy characters and dialog
"Truer words have never been spoken." ;).
I mostly skip the soldier narratives after the first few books taught me they were all going to become either red-shirts or over the top permanent sycophants within 10 pages.
But man, Safehold has far and away the best set up for “what if I knew everything about the history of militaries and military technology and wanted to conquer the world circa 1200 A.D. with it” I’ve ever seen. So satisfying ;)
I’ve actually recommended people who can’t abide military sci-fi or David Weber in general just read the first 50 pages of the first book.
Surprisingly many of these people go on to read the whole series.
I've never been able to explain as succinctly how I can enjoy both Asimov and Bacigalupi.
Yup. I'm strongly in the latter camp (as I'm fond of saying, if I wanted to read character development, I'd pick up literally any other genre - everything nowadays is about people and their emotional dramas; I like my sci-fi when it's about ideas). The whole Trilogy is pretty dense in concepts, including some insanely beautiful ideas, while also not venturing too far outside established science. I liked in particular how thinking of various... factions (to not spoiler too much) is built around lack of FTL in the books' universe.