Science-driven stories are good for the same reason that character-driven stories are good

(Spoilers in this post are hidden with spoiler tags.) What made Project Hail Mary so good? Among other reasons, it’s because the science drove the story, instead of the other way around. Character-driven stories and hard sci-fi might take up opposite positions in the ancient battle of “people vs. things”; but when they work, they work for fundamentally the same reasons. In mediocre…