Well that book does not sound so hot as SciFi goes
If you want to read the last great American writer, look no further than Gene Wolf’s “Book of the New Sun”, “Litany of the Long Sun”, “The Book of the Short Sun”, and “The Urth of the New Sun”
Hard Scifi would be the Xeelee series by Stephen Baxter.
Truly all of Gene Wolfe is great, if challenging to the point of befuddlement. Eventually I have to re-read ‘A Borrowed Man’ so I can then read the new posthumously released ‘Interlibrary Loan’.
Freegards