The Expanse and its compatibility with OA

[The Astronomer]

The overpowered engines come in as a close second. 

My take is that the Belt must have been originally settled with low thrust ion drives or something similar. So the large Belter fleet and perhaps even shipyards were not seen as much of a threat by Earth and Mars. When the torch drive was invented, the design got out, the Belters happily adopted it, and now they've got a grudge, access to far off places, and thousands of potential WMDs. Not happy times for the major powers.

As for the thermodynamics, just let it slide this time. No one should be chained to a radiator.

Let thermodynamics slide? Sure, really convenient handwave. Because nobody wants ships that can't accelerate faster than 0.1g in their epic action-packed stories, right?

...I wonder if we'll ever get a good hard space SF with no one big lie. Preferably those which aren't military SF as well.