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MathiasZaman comments on Open Thread April 8 - April 14 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I just made the point on the /r/HPMOR subreddit that with most fiction, the author wants to share a story with you, but with some authors (for example, Yudkowsky or Stephenson), they have knowledge they want to share with you and their way of sharing is through story.
I'm sure their are other authors who also do this, but they seem to be few and far between, making HPMOR one of the first works of that kind people may encounter.
Also, most authors who do want to show or teach something through their story tend to do it subtly and non-explicitly, perhaps because being open and explicit about a message is low-status.
I thought about it before I typed it out and I found that most authors do want to show or teach something, but that this is often something obvious. Harry Potter (canon) teaches us that Nazis are bad, that you shouldn't trust an oppressive government, that bureaucracies can be dangerous, that you shouldn't torture people... but when I read the novels (at the appropriate age, I grew up with them) I had already learned those lessons.
What Anathem, Snow Crash and HPMOR taught me were things I wouldn't have picked up on my own.
It's interesting to note that HP canon is aimed at children/teens, and that books aimed at those demographics tend to be more open about teaching something. It would be interesting to consider how often fiction aimed at adults is didactic, and how open adult didactic fiction is about its message.