10 votes

The twenty-five greatest science fiction tropes, ranked

6 comments

  1. [5]
    Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    What? How did sentient spaceships make it to Number 1? What sort of ranking method did these people use? This trope is not the most commonly used, or had the most impact on the genre, or is the...

    What? How did sentient spaceships make it to Number 1? What sort of ranking method did these people use? This trope is not the most commonly used, or had the most impact on the genre, or is the most well-known.

    I would have put FTL travel, robots, time travel, and aliens in the top four spots (although I'm not sure in which order). These are the best-known and most commonly used tropes in science fiction.

    6 votes
    1. [3]
      asteroid
      Link Parent
      I don't know how one judges "greatest" in this context. I'm fine with "25 important and common ones."

      I don't know how one judges "greatest" in this context. I'm fine with "25 important and common ones."

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        clerical_terrors
        Link Parent
        I was going to say: why rank these? What's the point? I know listicles work well on the internet but why would you feel the need to assert that some of these tropes are "better" by some obscure...

        I was going to say: why rank these? What's the point? I know listicles work well on the internet but why would you feel the need to assert that some of these tropes are "better" by some obscure metric than others?

        4 votes
        1. Thales
          Link Parent
          It looks the ranked format was intended to get people to comment on the article, so it looks like they got us... 'Rankings' aside, this is actually kind of neat as a directory for books to check...

          Where did your favorite trope rank? Let us know in the comments.

          It looks the ranked format was intended to get people to comment on the article, so it looks like they got us...


          'Rankings' aside, this is actually kind of neat as a directory for books to check out. Some of the tropes they list are ideas I've always been aware of in SF, but I've never really known where to look to find them. I'll probably add a few of these to my (novel-length) to-be-read list.

          2 votes
    2. TheJorro
      Link Parent
      Well, he does open with: This seems to be the author's own personal rankings, and he does gush over how much he loves this trope. That's fine, I guess. At least he can name and appreciate 25...

      Well, he does open with:

      A sentimental favorite that I’ll defend to the death (assuming I’ve got an out in the form of an uploaded consciousness, anyway).

      This seems to be the author's own personal rankings, and he does gush over how much he loves this trope.

      That's fine, I guess. At least he can name and appreciate 25 tropes instead of thinking all tropes are bad.

      3 votes
  2. patience_limited
    Link
    Let me add a few: Panopticons, good and bad. There's the Star Trek/Culture-esque sensor suite which enables the sentient home/ship/pervasive AI to serve your every need. There's the...

    Let me add a few:

    1. Panopticons, good and bad. There's the Star Trek/Culture-esque sensor suite which enables the sentient home/ship/pervasive AI to serve your every need. There's the 1984/Fahrenheit 451/Glasshouse style which lets the state grind a boot in your face forever.

    2. Apocalypses. This is the catastrophic failure-of-imagination state which too much science fiction has fallen into lately. Pandemics, ecocide, physics accidents, zombies/vampires/mutants, stray cometary objects, nukes, viruses in the brain-computer interface, it's just a never-ending slaughterfest of reasons to stay in bed.

    3. Cyborgs! How the heck did this one not make the list? Yes, we will all be bootstrapping ourselves with demigod-like implants and prostheses, strapping on power exoskeletons to dismantle skyscrapers, and the rest of the Evangeleon canon.

    4. Lifetech - basically, advanced genetic engineering. Everything from living starships, to terraforming, to engineered symbiotes which support humans in hostile environments, to entire ecosystems engineered for the benefit of humanity (or aliens, but that's a different novel, c.f. Ian McDonald's Chaga and Kirinya).

    1 vote