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Over the last few years I've been reading quite a lot of SciFi, both contemporary & 'classic'/older books.
One of things that is really striking is that while authors have always been able to imagine new technologies & universes, and often even seen new forms of future society, few (until recently, and then mostly female writes) have been able to imagine any sort of revolution in sexual politics or gender relations....
From which you can draw your own conclusions.
@ChrisMayLA6 We are gradually emerging from a binary world (which has existed for thousands of generations.) This change will be revolutionary.
Whilst I am acutely conscious of the climate crisis and the sixth mass extinction, I think the paradigm shift coming in "sexual politics (and) gender relations" is the most significant issue facing humanity.
I would welcome your list of writers who have been able to imagine this.
I'd start with Becky Chambers....
@PeterGray @ChrisMayLA6
I'd give a shout-out to Lois McMaster Bujold and the Vorkosigan novels. Very easy reading but with a lot of thought put into them. The early ones, particularly, have space battles! Plasma Shields! Gravitic Lances!
But, ticking behind, almost never centre stage, is the Uterine Replicator (artificial womb) and the transformative effect it has on various planets and cultures.
Sounds good.... have just ordered Falling Free, thanks
@ChrisMayLA6
Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Realtime is one of the extremely few pre-2000 books written by a man that I can still read today without a hard cringe at the sexism. His A Fire Upon the Deep is also very good. Both of these are sequels, but I feel they're both best as standalones.
thanks for the rec....
@temporal_spider @ChrisMayLA6 I'd suggest the two book compilation "Across Realtime" and treating it as one big story ...
@imbrium_photography @temporal_spider
thanks - just about to track it down
@imbrium_photography @temporal_spider
very quickly found & ordered..... looking forward to it (although it'll join a large to read pile).
@ChrisMayLA6 Ursula K Le Guin! Also for various types of government. A visionary.
Yes, but sometimes I find her work really difficult to read.... but that's likely just me
@ChrisMayLA6 Some of her work really stretches the brain and needs several attempts. I'm on my third go at Lavinia.
@sunflowerinrain @ChrisMayLA6 Heinlein’s ”The moon is a harsh mistress” goes into great detail about ‘line marriages’ — a polyamorous, multi-generational model for relationships which gets round some of the issues of inheritance, amongst other things.
@ChrisMayLA6
It's odd because since the forties comic books, many of which were written by SF writers, have had variations of matriarchal societies, equal societies where gender was barely an issue and even ones where the sexes were essentially separate and equally balanced warring worlds that only got together peaceably for mating purposes. Perhaps comic book editors and publisher's were less inflexible than their SF book counterparts or could afford to experiment in a cheaper medium.
possibly the latter.... if it proved unpopular the male hero could always overthrow the abhorrent female led system in the next weeks?
@ChrisMayLA6
You might like literature from the solarpunk movement. (Which is mostly short stories, I think.)
Thanks, new one on me; will investigate
Aha, so now I see solarpunk includes, Octavia Butler, Beck Chambers & Kim Stanley Robinson, all authors I've read & enjoyed.... seemingly I was a solarpunk fan & didn't realise 
@ChrisMayLA6 this is exactly right and why I don't care for "classic" sci-fi.
@ChrisMayLA6 What none of the science fiction writers imagine is the world we'll actually get - a world where the impacts of climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, geo-political instability, economic collapse, inter alia, result in a Malthusian catastrophe, grotesque depopulation & technological retardation. This will be accompanied by a return to pre-Enlightenment moral & political values, or worse. The future is grim indeed, & I hope I don't live to see it.
Although Robert Harris' Second Sleep has a go at imagining the long-term aftermath.
@ChrisMayLA6 Thank you for drawing my attention to this. I'll order it!
@ChrisMayLA6 True that. The early Asimovs are still good reads but are very blokey.