Andrew Lane and Nigel Foster have teamed up for an unusual science fiction novel, Netherspace, out now from Titan Books. Here the two authors discuss the (over)use of clichés, tropes and metaphors in current SF…

Now it’s true that Aristotle’s Poetics and Shakespeare’s plays contain all you need to know about plot and character development. Even so, most science fiction writers to do their best to jazz these up a little. And yet the same old tropes keep coming.

It’s always a space ship, right? With a hull, decks, a captain, a navigator and a galley rather than a kitchen. How come the Navy got to be in charge?

Why would very large vehicles that travel in space be like warships or cruise liners, rather than, say, office blocks containing a limited company with a Chairman, a Board of Directors, several floors, a staff and, yes, a kitchen and a restaurant? But by sending the Navy  – Royal, US, French, whatever – out into space, we’re made to feel secure. Space is being properly explored, even organised. We’re being defended against brain-sucking aliens. Space isn’t as scary or hostile as we’d thought.

Think about those brain-suckers for a moment: strange how often they’re humanoid. Even if physically weird, they turn out to be just like us. Bilaterally symmetrical, with heads at the top containing sensory organs arranged in a familiar pattern (eyes on top, then nose, then mouth). Love their kids, worry about the future and have strange sex. Apparently, emotions are universal. Ever wonder why? Back when magazines like Astounding flew the flag their writers also worked for crime mags. In both instances the use of the tried and the true, be it aliens or weary private eyes, does two things: makes the weird familiar, so easier to understand; and also reassures us, the readership. Somehow the Space Navy captain will win through; and there’ll be a drawing room denouement to unmask the guilty (“No doubt you’re wondering why I called you all here. I’m afraid one of you is a killer!”). Even if bad guys win, or fate smacks the hero in the face, it happens in a familiar way.

Of course there are exceptions but it’s salutary how many greats from both genres rely on the familiar to structure and enliven their work. It’s all metaphor. When James Blish writes about intelligent alien reptiles and whether they have souls in A Case of Conscience, he’s actually writing about people who aren’t, you know, like us. When Star Trek shows us militaristic Klingons it’s actually showing us Communists (in the original series) or uncivilised barbarians (in The Next Generation). Doctor Who’s Daleks are, very deliberately, Nazis in very small tanks.

Murder is often banal, always tragic, even terrifying. Space is lethal. If you think of it as the Atlantic we’ve only recently graduated from coracles to sailing ships. Space is scary and unknown. “The truth?” Jack Nicholson sneers in A Few Good Men, “you can’t handle the truth!” And that leads us right up to the doorway of H.P. Lovecraft – “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” (Ridley Scott’s Alien is Lovecraft in space – discuss).

This includes how boring and mundane both crime and space can be to anyone not directly involved. But as long as there are familiar tropes and time-honoured clichés for reassurance, writers can be as fantastical or as brutal as they like.

Naturally in Netherspace we went cliché and trope hunting with a vengeance. It seemed about time. If we missed one, feel free to let us know.

Clichés can be so very well disguised.

Netherspace is out now from Titan Books; click here to order from Amazon.co.uk