Yes to more technical, no to people, alas. Despite which, the conflicts and resolutions were pretty good. But the science fiction is brilliant.

(Incandescence also had some neat ideas, and I don't regret reading it -- it showed a reasonable way much of general relativity could be discovered before newtonian physics; but the people stuff irritated me. There was eventually an in-story explanation for the implausible characters, but it wasn't enough.)