I think to make the genre better, we need more people writing from perspectives backed up by studying certain fields and then creatively writing stories about using knowledge from them. Le Guin for example was able to bring anthropology into her work, and Kim Stanely Robinson did a PhD studying Philip K. Dick. Tools of the sciences and of history, and politics go a long way to making convincing and interesting science fiction. This is not to say that sci-fi should be left to academics to write, but that if you are going to write a novel about space feudalism you should have the political theory chops to explain how space feudalism could even happen or have a good historical understanding of what feudalism was.
Emphasis on the political theory btw, way too much bad sci-fi is uninterested in politics as more than a back drop (one reason KSR is so great is he does not do this).
I think to make the genre better, we need more people writing from perspectives backed up by studying certain fields and then creatively writing stories about using knowledge from them. Le Guin for example was able to bring anthropology into her work, and Kim Stanely Robinson did a PhD studying Philip K. Dick. Tools of the sciences and of history, and politics go a long way to making convincing and interesting science fiction. This is not to say that sci-fi should be left to academics to write, but that if you are going to write a novel about space feudalism you should have the political theory chops to explain how space feudalism could even happen or have a good historical understanding of what feudalism was.
Emphasis on the political theory btw, way too much bad sci-fi is uninterested in politics as more than a back drop (one reason KSR is so great is he does not do this).