I hadn't read that piece, but it's the conclusion I got to after reading a lot of sci-fi in my YA years.

The sci-fi I enjoyed the most would make one impactful change, say allow for intergalactic travel like in The Forever War, or allowing people to backup and restore their brains like in Altered Carbon, and see where that leads.

Others just use sci-fi as a backdrop for an otherwise conventional story, without really engaging with the sci-fi elements. They can be good stories, but I enjoyed the former much more.

There's this quote I heard that said something along the lines of "Good sci-fi uses fictional technology to show us something about human beings that would be difficult to express otherwise".

> The Forever War

I love books that attempt to deal with time dilation/travel correctly.

On the off chance case you haven't read it, check out Tau Zero by Poul Anderson.

I first read this as a foreword to The Left Hand of Darkness and it has completely changed how I read. It’s important to understand that there is an agenda behind every book, not as a bad thing, but as a way to understand and explore how the author thinks and how they have been shaped by the real world that they live in and build from to create.