Jodi and the kiddo and I are out East, visiting the family for a real live vacation. Before leaving, I raided the bookshelves of a family friend, and came away with a couple of pulp sci-fi novels – perfect airplane reading.
One of my choices was Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn (Amazon link).
From the synopsis on the back of the book, I was only mildly interested, but it looked readable. What I found was a fascinating "hard sci-fi" novel with a humorous conceit.