So, hard hard hard sci fi. Hmmm. Fred Pohl is your huckleberry. Try The Heechee Saga. Lois McMaster Bujold is pretty faithful to physics, give or take FTL. the Vorkosigan Saga should keep you busy. If you wanna go old school, start with Falling Free. Niven does a pretty good job, too, at least if you keep out of Known Space. The Fifthp in Footfall abide by the laws of physics, and Niven and Pournelle throw project Orion in there for good measure (long before it was cool to do so). Despite the fact that it is a series utterly devoid of space ships, The Integral Trees and its sequel The Smoke Ring are heavily reliant on physics. Richard K Morgan also doesn't fuck around, although he's hit or miss in my mind. Thirteen was great; Altered Carbon was okay.
If you care about characters, start with Bujold. The first book in the Vorkosigan Saga is The Warrior's Apprentice. I've only read like nine or ten of them; I think she's done a lot more since. She's one of those rare sci fi authors that lets things be character driven. Miles Vorkosigan was Tyrion Lannister twenty years ago. If you really want to geek out on a crafted universe, the Battletech Universe has over 100 novels to it and reflects the most in-depth, well-considered backstory of any game I know of. Dive in. Harry Harrison is probably the greatest proponent of the treatment of tech listed in your article. At least two of the Stainless Steel Rat books deal with the improbability of space battles and interstellar warfare, but one of his books in the persistent universe [(To the Stars?)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Stars_(trilogy)) addresses some of these issues and presents an unconventional but plausible scenario for space warfare.
Yes. I think Stackpole wrote some Battletech books. I'm currently re-reading the X-Wing series. There's some things about his writing style that I don't like, but his books are overall very enjoyable. I might give Battletech a look too. I just looked up the Stainless Steel Rat on Wikipedia and he seems like an interesting character. Conversely, I don't really find the subject matter of The Vorkosigan Saga all that compelling . . .