And at least Heinlein was good at world-building. In 2050, society has changed zilch. Throw in a weird cult of Elvis and a collective, and you have Clarke County. About the only thing that touches people's lives is the universal portable computer. Which they treat like cellular phones.
Language is static, too.
If Allen Steele does, he doesn't show it. At least Allen Steele knows how to put sentences together to make a paragraph. For one thing, the plot was ridiculous. Well, the bare bones of it aren't. In the end of the book, we find out that all the events were orchestrated the central AI of the space colony, which has gone self-aware.