As a science writer, I greatly admired the book's craft -- the positioning and "staging" of scientific and technical exposition in counterpoint with the historical and military narratives. Marshalling what the lay reader needs to know is hard; deploying it at the right time, in the right dosage, is really hard.

The microsecond-by-microsecond description of the first detonation is a minor masterpiece in itself. A while back, I asked Charlie Stross if he'd had it in mind when writing the description of the induced supernova in Iron Sunrise. IIRC, he replied that it hadn't been deliberate, but he remembered the Rhodes passage vividly and wouldn't be surprised if its influence had been in the mix.