(Posted by John.)
It's certainly fun to ridicule the Orson Scott Cards and Michael Crichtons of the world, and I wouldn't dream of asking people to stop. But I would also recommend the quality left-wing SF authors out there - it's true, they exist.
My personal fave is Kim Stanley Robinson of the Mars Trilogy. He's got another trilogy about catastrophic climate change which will finishing up early next year, called Science in the Capital. Robinson is, however, most definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
Now it occurs to me that I can't really think of any SF author as explicitly left as Robinson. There's plenty of goof SF that can be read as leftish, but I can't name another socialist off the top of my head. Any suggestions?
UPDATE: Lots of good suggestions in the comments. Check them out.
