[presidentender]

It doesn't preach so much as it explores. The author strikes me as being more economically literate than Rand or LeGuin, but not as good a writer as the latter.

The real and staggering excellence of the series is the speculation - it's not such hard SF that it explains the mechanisms by which everything happens, and there are real characters who do more than stand as cardboard observers to technology, but it's crunchier than most.