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Weir may have invented a new genre: STEMcore. His narrator-protagonists face a series of puzzles which they resolve with imaginative STEM skills and... well, that's most of it. I mean, he sets up a pretty good near-future world and gives the protagonist one big problem to resolve that helps drive tension (making it a quick read), but ultimately you're reading a short story that ate a physics textbook.

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What differs between STEMcore and classic Hard SF?

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STEMcore (which, to be clear, is just a term I made up) mostly solves problems with STEM. Contrast with something like The Expanse which builds the setting from (some) realistic physics (plus a few enabling premisses) and mostly solves problems with politics and tactics.