I have not read any of the books, and watched very little Star Trek, to be honest. Maybe I should distinguish "literary science fiction" and "pop science fictio

I have not read any of the books, and watched very little Star Trek, to be honest. Maybe I should distinguish "literary science fiction" and "pop science fiction" (without making any value judgements, I thoroughly enjoyed Star Wars 4-6)? If you want to deal with Asimov specifically, I can speak to what I remember about the Foundation books, which dealt with the outcome of being able to accurately model/simulate/predict societies, to the point of setting events in motion so as to shape a society thousands of years out from now. I consider that 'literary' science fiction, just as I do the earlier mentioned Cryptonomicon, even though there were no futuristic technologies in it.