A load of old trope: SCIENCE FICTION

Tropes always present an interesting challenge for an author – in many ways they are the things that define the genre, but they can become tired and staid over time. But equally it’s important not to veer so far away that the story becomes unrecognisable as its chosen genre and provides a little too much of a puzzle for a reader – or, and more likely I would guess, the publishing industry more widely. Books that cross or blend genres are not just a creative risk, but also a very real risk in the market sense – sometimes those chances pay off, but many times they don’t.

We’ve taken a look recently at some of the tropes that recur in fantasy and horror. Of course that’s not to say that science-fiction doesn’t have its share of facets that come back time and time again.

So today we’re going to take a look at some of the main tropes of sci-fi, thinking a little about why they