I have a hard time with RW SF

[cthulu2016]

10. In saying "finest classic SF novel"

I meant the best realization of the old school genre -- better Heinlein than Heinlein, that sort of thing. Not the best SF book by any measure -- I doubt Mote is in the top 100 by some other criteria.

I was using classic as a term-of-art and probably should have said old-school or 1940s-1950s style instead of classic, which is broad.

It's an impressive homage. (And what you note about Sally, as well as the whole puritanical culture they exist in, is very 1950s, which is why it doesn't trouble me in a work I assume was conciously written to be the ultimate 1950s SF space opera.)