I love these books (Dragon's Egg and Starquake). Robert Forward isn't great with the human characters, but they're only in a handful of scenes. He really brings the cheela to life, and the speculative physics is outstanding.
also Flux <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_(novel)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_(novel)</a> by Stephen Baxter
Before this, there was Mission of Gravity, by Hal Clement (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_Gravity" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_Gravity</a>)<p>He even wrote an article about the creation of his high-g planet, featured in Astounding SF in 1953.
Wouldn't enormous gravitational pressure on the surface of neutron star essentially make it extremely flat (as in nearly perfect elongated sphere)?