I'm using "political" in the way it's commonly applied to literature: social relationships involving power. This encompasses both your examples, as well as the Culture books.

Kameron Hurley has a longer piece on what it means for writing to be political:

https://locusmag.com/feature/kameron-hurley-the-status-quo-i...

And honestly, you can pick the "good" writer of your choice from Asimov to Zelazny. Their politics come through in their writing. Foundation and Lords of Light are both obviously political works. I don't need to get into Heinlein or Bradbury, or poul and it comes through the space between in the lines in Wolf and Pohl. Le Guin and Clarke wore their politics on their sleeves. Etc.

I'm not making some pedantic point here. Science Fiction is a deeply, inherently political genre and always has been.