Why We Love Sci-Fi: It Boldly Goes Where Other Stories Can't

Aliens. Monsters. Robots. Spaceships. Superhuman powers. Time machines. Yup, we're talking science fiction. But just why are these ideas so perennially popular?

As scholars and creators of the genre told SPACE.com, many of sci-fi's common scenarios, which may seem to be escapist fantasy, serve to delve into complex themes that beholden-to-reality fiction and nonfiction cannot explore so readily.

By engaging in what-ifs that are either far-out and close to home, science fiction stories can challenge assumptions that otherwise would go unexamined. Sci-fi shows us through film, television and literature where our society might have ended up, for better and for worse, had things been different.