The Science Fiction Genre

2. Non-Human Characters

Sci-fi is very much about exploring the limits of being human. What exists beyond us regular people living on earth? You might see aliens, robots, monsters, etc. as characters. By focusing not only on human, but non-human characters, sci-fi writers force us to consider what we even mean by "human."

3. Allegory

Sci-fi tends to be allegorical: the best sci-fi works often have a hidden meaning, because they work as a commentary on our own world and our own social and political systems. Sci-fi works may be set in fantastic locations far away from where we live, but that doesn't mean that they have nothing to do with us. Even when sci-fi writers write about distant worlds, they're really often writing about our own world. They transport us to distant worlds only to get us thinking about the way that we live in this world.

4. Science and Technology

Science and technology are big in this genre (hence the name). What makes sci-fi works sci-fi is the fact that their settings, their plots, their characters, their conflicts, all center around science and technology in some sense. For example, sci-fi stories couldn't be set in outer space if it were not for science and technology allowing characters to travel to outer space in the first place.

7. Dystopia

One of the ways science fiction writers talk about our world by pretending to talk about another world is by depicting a dystopia. A dystopia is the opposite of utopia. A utopian society is wonderful: people are free and happy and the sun's shining and everything's just dandy. In a dystopia people are oppressed, they're miserable, and everything they do is controlled by some authority. By creating futuristic depictions of dystopia, sci-fi writers are sending us a warning: "If we continue down this road our society will look like this in a hundred, or a thousand years. And it ain't pretty."

1. Setting in an Alternative World

One thing you will find over and over again in sci-fi is a setting that is strange, different, or faraway. Sci-fi writers are all about imagining an alternative world and bringing readers to it. That world can be in the future, on a different planet, in the past, or in a fantastic setting that the writer made up.

5. Time Travel

Time travel is another big theme in sci-fi. We'll find characters in these works zipping into the future, or back in time. Often, the whole plot of a Sci-fi work is set in a distant time, usually in the future.

6. Journey

You'll find lots and lots of journeys in sci-fi. People are traveling all over the place. They might zip from galaxy to galaxy, or from time to time. Sci-fi texts are often structured around some type of voyage.

Science Fiction

a genre of speculative fiction that typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts; it explores the impact of actual or imagined science upon society and/or individuals