Skip to Main Content

CIST Student Sandbox

IST 605: Science Fiction

Reader's Guide to Science Fiction

A Casual Reader's Guide to Science Fiction

This guide is intended to help you begin your foray into the world of literary science fiction. Any topics discussed here range from the context surrounding different aspects of science fiction to some of my favorite examples within the genre. The guide can be navigated by the tabs on the left-hand side of this page.

Science Fiction is commonly understood as a genre of fiction that tackles the future, technology, and fantasy through a lens of science to tell any number of stories. To cite a commonly understood definition from Wikipedia, Science Fiction, Sci-Fi, or even SF, is a "genre of speculative fiction, which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life." This guide will only examine literary science fiction, but the genre ranges across media formats.

Search Strategies

Conducting Your Own Searches

Search Terms Resources and Databases
Science Fiction, Sci-Fi, SF, print SF, pulp sci-fi, futurism, space fiction, space odyssey, space opera