That's so true! And the stuff they call "science-fiction" these days usually leaves the science out. I'm very "old school," and became addicted to the "hard" nuts-and-bolts science-fiction nurtured by famed "Analog" (formerly "Astounding Science Fiction") editor John W. Campbell Jr.
Campbell published some of the finest SF stories ever written, like Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations." He discovered and mentored Asimov, Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon and many other famed Golden Age writers. He also created a style of SF based on actual science often described as "speculative but plausible."
The most famous of those "hard science" yarns was "Deadline" by Cleve Cartmill. It was published in 1944, a year before the the first atomic bomb exploded. The story described all the basic steps of making a fission bomb and it set the FBI into a frenzy. They wanted to recall all the magazine's news stand copies but Campbell was able to convince them that doing so would be a big tip-off to the Axis that we were involved in nuclear research. The agency backed off.
As far as I'm concerned reality has mostly caught up with and in some cases surpassed the imaginative scope of that type of science fiction. The SF I've read over the past few years is mostly devoted to the "soft" sciences like sociology -- ok for those who like it but not me. I long for the days of the likes of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, C.M. Kornbluth, Hal Clement, Murray Leinster, Poul Anderson, Alfred Bester, James Blish, Fredric Brown, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, Fritz Leiber, Chad Oliver, Frederik Pohl, Eric Frank Russell, Clifford D. Simak, E.E. "Doc" Smith, Theodore Sturgeon, William Tenn, A. E. van Vogt, Jack Vance and many of the other "greats."
I don’t need every story to describe how everything works, unless its something pretty different from the rest of them. No need to reinvent the wheel. :p
In my opinion Jack Vance beats pretty much any combo of ‘big three.’ He’s still kicking too, he’s 96. Last novel was 2004.
Here’s a fairly recent article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19Vance-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Freegards