byScience Fiction, like every literary genre, has its archetypal characters and familiar themes. Knowing what they are will make you a better science fiction reader and writer. The following guide was designed to help you identify many of them.
Don’t drink the water in any extraterrestrial culture where the faucets emit a yellow vapor and the drinking glass is shaped like an oblique circular cylinder, glows in the dark, and is made of structural iron. When using alien rest rooms, watch out for toilets that look like miniature mining sluices and are operated by a system of levers and pulleys. Don’t fall in love with any alien whose mating habits belong in an entomology text. Don’t order a Big Meq at MeqZkkh’s on Betelgeuse IV, and if you do, skip the tantalum sauce. If you’re going to spen
