I'm very much with you on this Rosemary. I'm by no means exclusively into hard believable SF but I do get an extra buzz from reading stuff based on solid science and I do love ACC's work for exactly that reason.
In case you missed it you might be interested in Ian Sales new venture that he posted on recently (
New Anthlogy: Rocket Science). Looks very interesting and I think I shall be taking a much closer look when it appears.