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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space
The novel reflects Reynolds's professional background: he has a PhD in astronomy and worked for many years for the European Space Agency.
Revelation Space was short listed for the 2000 BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards
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Based on the answers here, it's apparent that different people have different definitions. For myself I take it to mean no new fundamental physics. Any new technology is a reasonable extrapolation from existing, known science. Probably the single biggest narrative restriction that implies is no FTL.
As you mentioned, there is disagreement. Many folks would characterize as Hard SciFi some stories that make use of FTL travel but which give a "rigorous" explanation of why it initially appeared to be impossible (in present day) but is actually possible according to physics discoveries made after the present day. In some sense, the important criteria is that the laws of physics are "taken seriously", and that the aut…
David Brin's Uplift Trilogy. Also, Not really an amazing book but Seveneves by Neal Stephenson was pretty technical.
I don't recall AI playing a role in those books, can you expand?
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"The Martian" is really good book, and I loved the movie. I am looking forward to Andy Weir's new book. But ... I wouldn't put "The Martian" in the scifi AI category.
Wouldn't it have been interesting if there had been a not-quite-AI chatbot as part of the hab's computers?
The whole point and the buzz was people saw it as a novel about present day tech.
The metamorphosis of prime intellect: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/ Not sure whether it’s hard, it has quite an unexpected but plausible plot. There’s much love in me for this weird, twisted, brutal and captivating story — I think it’s much underappreciated.
Greg Egan's Diaspora starts with the details of what it's like for a new AI to be brought into existence in a society of advanced AIs, and jumps off from there. Definitely one of the more original hard sci-fi novels I've read.
However, I regard him as a bad writer, as his dialogue is very bad, his characters hollow and his plot progression is rather jumpy.
Read him for his stimulating ideas, but not the way he tells the story.
Holy cow, how have people not mentioned Alastair Reynolds? PhD in physics, astronomer, worked for the European space agency, and writer of the incredible revelation space series. No FTL, but "humanity" has expanded through the Galaxy. Main characters move through deep space in deep sleep on enormous ships called lighthuggers. Long jumps in time. It's a combination of hard sci-fi and space opera. AI and the nature of…
There might be a few aspects that of the story that push it out of the "Hard Sci-Fi" category; but most of it seems to obey the laws of physics as we understand them.