Thorns

Well, my definition of "hard sf" shifts with context. In this particular case I was thinking of authors whose works are basically ideas with a thin shell of story over the top like Egan, Asimov, and Baxter. To know that's what I meant you'd have to be psychic :) Basically the characters are the least important aspect of these stories, and as a result I think it's unlikely they'd get much fanfic.