They're "rock 'em, sock 'em, drink a beer and sit and have some smokes" kinda books.
Sci-fi is like that. Really hit-or-miss. For newbies, the genre is almost as daunting as classical music. People that don't know it have no idea how huge and diverse and important to understanding what it means to be human sci-fi literature is. They see the movies and that's all they know. I'm still a newbie, dipping my toes in the ocean. Just read Heinlein's "Starship Troopers"...Very good, especially from a philosphical point-of-view.