Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Favourite Science Fiction Tropes

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

This is one of those prompts that I could ramble on about for ages. I did my best to keep this post fairly short and sweet, but do ask me about science fiction tropes if we ever meet in person and you’d like to see me suddenly shift from being quiet to talkative!

Galaxy filled with starsInterstellar Travel

Example: Star Trek

Why I Enjoy It: Sometimes I wish I’d been born at a point in time when we could actually go visit the planets and moons that astronomers are currently discovering. Based on how far away they are from us, we’d probably need to invent interstellar travel to make it possible for us to discover what – or maybe even who – else we’d discover on those possibly habitable words.

 

high-angle photo of a robotRobots

Example: Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories

Why I Enjoy It: I’m fascinated by technology in general, especially when it can be used to do complex tasks that used to require a human to do them correctly.

If we ever create robots that have human-like intelligence, I’d be so interested in finding out how they changed society and how humans treated them. In the meantime, there are many stories out there about this topic.

 

three strands of DNAClones 

Example: Jurassic Park (film and book)

Why I Enjoy It: I’ve loved this idea ever since I saw the baby dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. It’s also thought-provoking to imagine a world where someone who needs a new heart can have one grown from their own cells and never have to deal with any of the longterm health issues that transplant recipients currently need to look out for.

 

microscopic photo of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology

Example: Michael Crichton’s Prey (film and book)

Why I Enjoy It: I dream of the day when my friends and relatives who live with chronic health conditions that currently have no cure might find relief from something like this.

This field is still in its infancy. There’s no telling what it might be capable of doing for future generations!

 

cryogenic podsCryosleep

Example: Futurama (TV show)

Why I Enjoy It: Being able to skip over hundreds or thousands of years of human history while keeping the same protagonist makes many science fiction plots feel much more plausible.

There’s also something amazing about getting a peek at what the future of humanity could possibly be like!

 

 

35 Comments

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35 Responses to Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Favourite Science Fiction Tropes

  1. Great examples of sci-fi ways of showing us the future, and one we want to live in.

  2. Great post! 🙂 I love the idea of interstellar travel, and I love books or TV shows that feature it heavily – it’s so fascinating trying to imagine all the different worlds that might be out there!

  3. verushka

    Gosh yes to Star Trek! The possibilities and worlds in the show and movies just grabbed me and hasn’t let me go all these years later.

  4. Great post!
    It doesn’t strictly have a lot of these tropes, but for some reason your post immediately made me think of The Archcronology of Love by Caroline M. Yoachim, it’s a great novelette, if you haven’t read it give it a try, I think it’s free to read online

  5. Sci-Fi is my favourite genre – I wish I’d known about this sooner as I could’ve written a crazy long post on it!

  6. Berthold Gambrel

    Great choices! I love all of these tropes as well.

  7. What a great post, I’m all for cryosleep as long as I can have my own Bender when I wake up in the future!

  8. Those are great examples of sci-fi. I’ve never been big into sci-fi, but you make it sound way more interesting than I ever thought, so thanks!

  9. I have only read a handful of sci-fi books, though I’ve recently added more to my TBR. Blake Crouch’s Recursion was the first one I really loved. Have you read it?

    My post: https://mamaneedsabook.blogspot.com/2020/08/blogging-challenge-truly-thrilling.html

  10. Great post. I totally agree with you. Love robots and tech. Sci-Fy is my go to when I need something different.

  11. Great post! I agree with you about Interstellar Travel — while I’m too much of a chicken to imaging being among the first citizens signing up for a ride to Mars (well, and I’m also nowhere near wealthy enough for the cost) I would love to live in a time when it’s normal and affordable and accessible to travel among the stars.

  12. Have you ever seen Orphan Black? It deals with clones and is amazing. I like your take on this week’s topic, too. I couldn’t figure out anything that wasn’t pretty much a romantic trope, so you did better than me!

  13. I’m with you on most of these! I also like genetic modification stories, but I’ve never found any fiction that really does it well. Suarez’ “Change Agent” comes the closest, I think.

  14. Great selections. I had the same problem with trying to keep my post short; I mean, this topic could go on and on and… Yeah.

    Have you read Sisters of the Vast Black, by Lina Rather? Nuns in space, and aside from being fascinating just for that, it has one of my favorite SFF tropes: their ship is a living being.

    My answer(s) are here.

  15. I find clones and cryosleep intriguing, for the reasons you mentioned. Lovely post.

  16. I agree with you on cryosleepand robots. I love Asimov.

  17. I love this! I’ve been really wanting to dive into more fantasy lately. I think it’s time to crack open some of my Star Trek and Michael Crichton books!

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