Hmm. I'd need to reread the story in question, but I find this interesting because I had the opposite reaction to 'The Story Of Your Life', where I didn't care much for the Big SF Idea but was rather touched by the human story. I thought the attempt to meld the two rather failed in that case, though. And I am a sucker for a parent/child love story, of course.

(Thinking about it further, I suppose I would agree with your criticism in regard to 'Understand', which definitely doesn't work without the hook.)

But I don't know. Sometimes a story can be just a vehicle for a cool idea, and that's OK IMO. That's not just true of genre fiction, either.