[RangerScience]

I think of this as “humanist” sci-fi; which has heavy overlap with “golden era” SF.

Other authors I’d put in this category are Gene Roddenberry (TOS and TNG, particularly), Asimov, PKD, Vonnegut and Theodore Sturgeon.

Personally - fantasy stories are “and-then” stories, SF are “what-if”. Humanist sci-fi is then asking “what-if” about very human things, as opposed to technological things, although the two are always related.

However, practically speaking, literature vs sci-fi vs fantasy (vs young adult!) are more marketing cohorts than anything else; what kind of people buy what kind of books?