Love them or hate them there are a lot of common tropes across the science fiction genre. What are some of your favorite and least favorite tropes?
I think it goes without saying that one of the least favorite tropes is Deux ex Machina. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at first, but after watching the German TV show “Dark” I was utterly dissatisfied with it. The entire series up until the very last episode is about this inescapable time loop and alternative universes which is pretty cool while watching it, but then you get closer and closer to the end wondering how they are going to solve this impossible problem. Then surprise they just do it instantly in the last episode.
Another trope I am not very fond of is nanotechnology where there are trillions of tiny robots that can effectively act as magic. It just feels like a lazy way to write science fiction because you really want a fantasy.
A trope I do actually like despite how overdone it is, is the idea of a precursor or forerunner. It often brings to light the absolutely massive scale of the universe which I find fun to think about.
I don’t know how common the trope is, but since reading Accelerando i love the idea of extending your mind with computers. It starts with the MC sending AI-Agents to research tasks in the beginning of the book (something thats not that unrealistic nowadays), to most of a humans “thinking power” being outside their head.
“The precursor” is also always great. I loved the “broken earth” trilogy for that, most of what i remember from it is about finding out what the precursors did and how their artefacts worked.
What I dislike isn’t really a trope, but it’s when an author expects me to believe that future populations are stuck in the present cultural climate. A lot of old scifi books have aged really poorly because their authors could not imagine society moving forwards at all, so their societies of the future just seem dated. “The stars my destination” is like this imo.
To your dislike that’s what makes the Ancillary series pretty good is that there are a lot of weird new cultural norms spread throughout to give you the distinct feeling of a similar but separate human culture.
One of the big ones being that all characters are referred to as “she” but aren’t all necessarily female. Plus lots of other little fun things like “lesser classes” being forced to wear gloves. It just goes the extra mile to make the universe feel a little more lived in.
I recently read the first Foundation novel as well as most of the second. Asimov was clearly not envisioning a more egalitarian future when he wrote about housewives destabilizing society when their appliances break and they can’t get them fixed or replaced.
I honestly lost a lot of interest in continuing the series just because of that, but I also couldn’t get attached to any of the characters since it zips around in history so quickly. I get that civilization itself is supposed to be a “character” of sorts, but that just doesn’t appeal to me.
I did like the first season of the show, however.
It’s been a minute since I’ve read the Foundation series, but I didn’t recall Asimov saying that society was destabilizing just due to appliances, but because they had forgotten how to repair/produce pretty much all modern technology (which of course the book being a product of its time, is all powered by mini nuclear reactors).
Oh that’s too bad, I was actually looking forward to reading those books soon…
Did they modernize it in the show?
The show diverges pretty heavily from the books, but the part of the books that @[email protected] is referencing hasn’t been reached yet.