The handwaving "science" part. And then in the end there's this deus ex machina plot point that comes out that makes all the rest of the plot utterly pointless.
I've read a lot of SF, that was the worst because I had such high hope for it after reading what everyone had to say about it. And it turned me off reading anything that's won a Hugo entirely. That and Redshirts...
It really puts your suspension of disbelief to the test, and all the characters are terrible. I actually thought the netflix show was better than the book because the characters were alot more relatable.
Yeah same here, I thought it was one of the few cases where the adaptation was better than the book. It cuts out a lot of the waffle from the books and patches up lots of holes, especially with characters like you said.