The 8 Modern Rules of Science Fiction

It was 1895 and the Industrial Revolution was at its height. H. G. Wells published The Time Machine, about an engineer who built a time traveling contraption using the technology of the day (there were a lot of gears involved). Wells understood one of the rules of science fiction: the technology must be believable and understandable.

Fast forward to the latter half of the 20th Century and that rule was still going strong. Star Trekkies could tell you about the scientific theory behind beaming someone to a planet. The science had advanced, but the rule remained the same.

Then Star Wars came along and bent all the rules by splashing magic into the mix. The Matrix broke every one of the old science fiction rules that had coalesced since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818. With new books like Sea of Tranquility and Kaiju Preservation Society, new rules for science fiction had begun to form.

Rule: Story Before Science

The first, and potentially most important, rule of modern science fiction is to never let the science or technology get in the way of the story.

Old, pure science fiction from masters such as Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury loved to describe the mechanics behind the technology in their stories. Asimov is an engineer’s wet dream.