Sorry for the late reply, I'm away from home on a trip.
Not yet. When I say I'll read something, it often takes a long time. Sometimes less, sometimes more, but generally I rarely look at it right after I know a deadline. Unless I need it for writing a text or other writing-related work. But that's a different topic, because it's about money/quality of work done :P.
Do you call Hyperion soft-sci-fi? Interesting. I heard from friends who recommended this book to me that it's one of the most demanding sci-fi series and the author really put in the effort when writing it.
I haven't read the second volume of Altered Carbon because it's hard to find in Poland, and I don't want to pay 2 or even 3 times the price for a used, old book. I once made an exception for H.G. Wells' War of the World, but the 1st edition in Poland was worth it :).
He always does. I've read almost everything by Dan Simmons. I don't know what I meant by soft. Perhaps not what it's generally used for. I mean the focus was not on technicalities despite the fact that some of those are pretty good, him being a geographer and all. The work is more imaginative and speculative since it's related to a future very advanced and that's beyond the scope of modern science. I should stop trying to say anything else but the books were great.
I think I understand what you mean. Is it that he could use professional vocabulary, go into some topics a little deeper? Andrzej Sapkowski (author of The Witcher) is sometimes accused of similar things, that he also oversimplifies certain issues. I will say this, there is nothing wrong with that as long as the author did the research and presented it in a way that at least makes theoretical sense. In the sense that such a situation could occur in this type of scenario.
Such people who have extensive knowledge of various topics, although they usually do not reach sensible and large conclusions (because these are much more complex, in which knowledge has a huge significance, and having it at a superficial level, you can make stupid mistakes), but they can notice things that most people will not pay attention to or ignore as unimportant. Despite the fact that they also have some significance or are quite an important cog in a large machine.