Status Updates From The Last Astronaut

Oh look! It's like "Rendevous With Rama", only with less wonder, more horror, and far, far more stupidity.

Big Dumb Object, emergency mission put together from the ruins of a space program. This should be right up my alley, but its so far entirely formulaic, couched in an irritating book-within-a-book structure, and full of annoying technical problems (most obviously: if something has an IAU designation, it is not a secret). Have I become too much of a space geek to enjoy space fiction?