Writers of this class of science fiction have clearly in mind the assumptions that man can master the principles of this cause-and-effect universe and that such mastery will necessarily better the human lot.

On the other hand, the bright vision of the future has been directly stated in science fiction concerned with projecting ideal societies -- science fiction, of course, is related, if sometimes distantly, to that utopian literature optimistic about science, literature whose period of greatest vigor in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward and H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia.

In Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End ( 1953 ), though written after the present flood of dystopias began, we can see the bright vision of science fiction clearly defined.

Considering then the optimism which has permeated science fiction for so long, what is really remarkable is that during the last twelve years many science-fiction writers have turned about and attacked their own cherished vision of the future, have attacked the Childhood's End kind of faith that science and technology will inevitably better the human condition.

Because of the means of publication -- science-fiction magazines and cheap paperbacks -- and because dystopian science fiction is still appearing in quantity the full range and extent of this phenomenon can hardly be known, though one fact is evident: the science-fiction imagination has been immensely fertile in its extrapolations.

There is, of course, nothing new about dystopias, for they belong to a literary tradition which, including also the closely related satiric utopias, stretches from at least as far back as the eighteenth century and Swift's Gulliver's Travels to the twentieth century and Zamiatin's We, Capek's War With The Newts, Huxley's Brave New World, E. M. Forster's `` The Machine Stops '', C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and which in science fiction is represented before the present deluge as early as Wells's trilogy, The Time Machine, `` A Story Of The Days To Come '', and When The Sleeper Wakes, and as recently as Jack Williamson's `` With Folded Hands '' ( 1947 ), the classic story of men replaced by their own robots.

Not all recent science fiction, however, is dystopian, for the optimistic strain is still very much alive in Mission Of Gravity and Childhood's End, as we have seen, as well as in many other recent popular novels and stories like Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud ( 1957 ) ; ;

and among works of dystopian science fiction, not all provide intelligent criticism and very few have much merit as literature -- but then real quality has always been scarce in science fiction.

`` The human ego being what it is '', I put in, `` science fiction has always assumed that the creatures on the planets of a thousand larger solar systems than ours must look like gigantic tube-nosed fruit bats.

It is not through space nor time that the time machine most approved by science fiction must travel for a visit to the permanent prehistoric past, or the ever-existent past-fantasy future.

Significantly, Huxley also worked for a time in the 1920s at the technologically advanced Brunner and Mond chemical plant in Billingham, Teesside, and the most recent introduction to his famous science fiction novel Brave New World ( 1932 ) states that this experience of " an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence " was one source for the novel.

Until recently, androids have largely remained within the domain of science fiction, frequently seen in film and television.

The term " droid ", coined by George Lucas for the original Star Wars film and now used widely within science fiction, originated as an abridgment of " android ", but has been used by Lucas and others to mean any robot, including distinctly non-human form machines like R2-D2.

" The term made an impact into English pulp science fiction starting from Jack Williamson's The Cometeers ( 1936 ) and the distinction between mechanical robots and fleshy androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future ( 1940 – 1944 ).

For example, Heinlein was the " dean of science fiction writers " because he was " the scientist " of science fiction.

* Caprica ( disambiguation ), various meanings in the science fiction franchise series Battlestar Galactica

* The Matrix ( franchise ), a science fiction franchise

The Cardassians are an extraterrestrial species in the Star Trek science fiction franchise.

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* Terminator ( franchise ), a series of science fiction films and derivative works

* Star Trek: First Contact, the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise

* Star Trek: The Next Generation, an American science fiction television series and part of the Star Trek franchise

Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction franchise created by Glen A. Larson.

* Centurion, a fictional officer in the Romulan Star Empire in the science fiction franchise Star Trek

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V is a science fiction franchise created by American writer, producer and director Kenneth Johnson about an invading alien race known as the " Visitors " – reptilian humanoids disguised as human beings – trying to take over Earth, and the human reaction to this, including Resistance group attempting to stop them, while others collaborate with the aliens for power and personal wealth.

BattleTech is a wargaming and science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2000, and owned since 2003 by Topps.

The film is the third feature film of the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the center of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and concludes with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

* Stargate, a Canadian-American military science fiction media franchise running from 1994, 1997 – 2011

* Judgment Day ( Terminator franchise ), a date in the Terminator science fiction franchise, and the second film Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The Terminator series is a science fiction franchise encompassing a series of films and other media concerning battles between Skynet's artificially intelligent machine network, and John Connor's Resistance forces and the rest of the human race.

The Breen are an extraterrestrial species in the Star Trek science fiction franchise.

Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is the original American science fiction / adventure animated television series that started the franchise.

is a 1989 Japanese science fiction original video animation series, the first such series in the Gundam franchise.

A military science fiction franchise and alternate history universe, it spans all media and has lasted for more than 20 years since his January 1987 radio drama While Waiting For The Red Spectacles.

This article is an overview of technology found in the fictional universe of BattleTech, a wargaming and science fiction franchise created by FASA and owned by WizKids.

The 1982 science fiction film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan used " Amazing Grace " amid a context of Christian symbolism, to memorialize the death of Mr. Spock but more practically, because the song has become " instantly recognizable to many in the audience as music that sounds appropriate for a funeral " according to a Star Trek scholar.

The subspace radio, best known today from Star Trek and named for the method used in the series for achieving faster-than-light travel, was the most commonly used name for such a faster-than-light communicator in the science fiction of the 1930s to the 1950s.

* overdrive effects such as the use of a fuzz box can be used to produce distorted sounds, such as for imitating robotic voices or to simulate distorted radiotelephone traffic ( e. g., the radio chatter between starfighter pilots in the science fiction film Star Wars ).

A well-known example of a non – carbon-based life-form in science fiction is the Horta in the original Star Trek episode " Devil in the Dark ".

* Dark Star ( film ), a 1974 science fiction movie directed by John Carpenter

He was inspired by the mention of the concept in the 1937 science fiction novel Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon, and possibly by the works of J. D. Bernal and Raymond Z. Gallun who seem to have explored similar concepts in their work.

Dyson has been interested in space travel since he was a child, reading such science fiction classics as Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker.

* Each chapter in Frank Herbert's science fiction novels Whipping Star, The Dosadi Experiment, and Dune variously begin with an aphorism, an excerpt from an official report ( or even a manual ), a quotation from a book about the events of the novel, etc.

* The popular science fiction universe of Star Wars uses a transport vehicle known as the Lambda-class shuttle that when viewed forward has the shape of the lowercase lambda.

Niven has written scripts for various science fiction television shows, including the original Land of the Lost series and Star Trek: The Animated Series, for which he adapted his early story " The Soft Weapon ".

* " Nemesis " ( Star Trek: Voyager ), episode 4 of season 4 of the 1995 science fiction series

In the science fiction television series Star Trek, " B-4 " is used as the name of one of four androids models constructed " before " the android Data, a main character.

Software developer and hyperreality theorist Alan N. Shapiro has written Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, examining the physics and computer science of all major Star Trek technologies, as well as posing the sociological question of why exactly our culture is so interested in building these technologies.

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