Science fiction clichés

• Extraterrestrial brain slugs deprive their human hosts of free will:

Examples:

Robert A. Heinlein's 1951 novel The Puppet Masters.

• Extraterrestrials contact humanity but only appear to be friendly:

Examples:

"To Serve Man" episode of The Twilight Zone 1962

• Human species degenerates through speciation:

Examples:

H.G. Wells's novel Then Time Machine

Poul Anderson's "Ghetto," a short story in William F. Nolan's collection A Wilderness of Stars and "The Horn of Time the Hunter," a short story in his collection The Horn of Time

• Human beings mutate horribly after nuclear war:

Tatyana Tolstaya's novel The Slynx

• Monster disguised as an attractive woman:

Shambleau

Mars Attacks 1996 film

• Nuclear experiment gone horribly wrong:

Example:

Attack of the Crab Monsters 1957 film

• Overpopulation forces humans to live in immense towers or beneath the ground:

Examples:

Towers

Mack Reynolds' 1975 novel The Towers of Utopia

J.T. McIntosh's 1958 novel The Million Cities

• Scientist unleashes powers he (rarely she) cannot control

examples:

Mary Shelley's 1823 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Forbidden Planet 1956 film

Surrogates 2009 film

• Aging population burdens society:

Example

Albert Brooks 2030

• Astronaut trapped in an airlock:

Examples

2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 film

• Post-Apocalyptic Barbarism:

Examples

nuclear war

A Boy and His Dog 1975 film

The Book of Eli 2010 film

climate change

Poul Anderson's novel The Winter of the World

Tatyana Tolstaya's novel The Slynx

• Planet that appears a Paradise Hides Some Horror:

Examples

"The Apple" episode of Star Trek: The Original Series

• Catastrophe Caused by Scientific Blunder:

Examples

Gerald Hatch's novel The Day the Earth Froze

• Adventure After Being Accidentally Crygenically Frozen and/or Trapped in a Stasis Field Chamber

Examples

Robert A. Heinlein's 1938 novel For Us, The Living

Robert A. Heinlein's 1948 novel Beyond This Horizon

Sleeper 1973 film

Idiocracy 2006 film

• Tentacle monster molests human female

• Starships exiting hyperspace arrive horizontal to the ecliptic of the star system

• Master Computer for an Entire Society

Lomax [HG Wells' The Shape of Things to Come 1979 film

External Links

• List of Science Fiction Cliches with few examples
• Zombie Spaceship Wasteland: A Book by Patton Oswalt Comedian Patten Oswalt identifies three author/possible audience groups for deqaling with life through science fiction.