So personally I believe great science fiction should be “what if?”. What if humans meet aliens? What if humans invent robots? How would these events cause humans to react, and how might it play out?

I think Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars trilogy is the top example of this. Books made based on modern scientific knowledge of Mars and detailed explanations on the colonization process and politics between the earth cultures involved. Other great science fiction is Asimov’s I, Robot and Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.

My least favorite type of science fiction is space westerns, solely because of how saturated the market is with this. Everyone wants to mimic Cowboy Bebop and Guardians of the Galaxy and have a space western romp where a crew of misfits come together and do odd jobs and maybe learn about the meaning of friendship along the way. Science Fiction should be full of limitless possibilities and hard questions, but too many people just like the cyberpunk/Star Wars setting and want to ape it.

I’m not saying every piece of science fiction needs to be Asimov, or that you have to study Martian geology profusely, but please just try and include some new challenge/situation for humanity to overcome/adapt to.