Fiction that explores how scientific or technological change transforms human experience, society, or the universe itself.
Science fiction builds stories around the consequences of science and technology, real, theoretical, or imagined. It asks 'what if?' and follows the implications: what if we could travel faster than light, what if machines became conscious, what if the climate collapsed. The genre ranges from hard-science extrapolation to soft, character-driven speculation, but the common thread is that the science or technology isn't decorative. It shapes the story.
Science fiction is the genre of ideas, and it's one of the most commercially powerful categories in publishing, film, and games. If you're writing it, understanding its subgenres helps you find your readers. If you're not, studying its world-building and premise-driven plotting will strengthen any speculative work you attempt.
Ecology, politics, religion, and power converging on a desert planet, science fiction as philosophical epic.
Invented cyberpunk and predicted the internet's cultural impact decades before it arrived.
A security robot with social anxiety navigating corporate space, proving science fiction can be funny, warm, and still structurally sharp.
Readers remember characters, not gadgets. Your tech should create interesting problems for interesting people.
If you invent a technology, follow its implications. Faster-than-light travel changes economics, politics, warfare, and culture, not just transportation.
Technology changes everything it touches. Your future society should feel genuinely different, not just contemporary life plus spaceships.
Pick one real technology that's currently emerging (gene editing, neural interfaces, autonomous vehicles). Extrapolate 50 years. Write a 500-word scene showing an ordinary person's morning routine in that future, where the technology has changed daily life in ways both obvious and subtle.