Just read this. Good story, crazily imaginative and original, and yet all the ideas are directly drawn from research. The book has (checks) 133 endnotes mostly from Science and Nature as well as academic texts. This could mean the story is forced, but it isn't.
The research is not only on this one, he does this for all his full-lenght books and he keeps the right balance between plausible, novel and interesting.
Reading the author notes about the ideas and what research they are based off is an extra pleasure after finishing one of his books.
