Hiding behind the perspective of hard sci-fi doesn't make this a good book.

This is very much not hard sci-fi. My biggest problem with it is how it pretends to be.

The author doesn't even understand the eponymous scientific term.

Edit: I don't know enough about every culture to dispute your claim that not all cultures write soap operas, but China sure as hell does. They produce more and have a larger audience than anywhere else in the world. They like the same shit everyone else does. Your bullshit claim is Orientalism at best and fetishization at worst.