Have you tried Heinlein's Glory Road? It was his homage to sword-n-sorcery fiction.
Me too, even when it's completely wrong SF. I loooove the chapter at the beginning of "Tunnel in the Sky" where he explains all the science and societal results of that science and it's just this big unapologetic "here's how it works, read this and then we can get back to the story" bit.
Haven't read that.
I like sci-fi where the sci-fi is more of the setting than the plot, as I think I've said before. I'm all for gadgets and space travel and all that...but for the most part I don't care about how they work, so long as I understand that they do. ;-)
I guess it's why I've always been more interested in the time travel type sci-fi than in the space battle sort. Time travel automatically assumes you have to suspend disbelief, so they don't tend to work in equations so much.