The visual imagery of humans struggling with everyday objects many times their own size, or encountering usually benign animals as terrifying monsters, captures the imagination. Hence the popularity of the SF of miniaturisation.

Is it possible for individuals to own entire planets? Science fiction has explored this question more than once, in a range of different contexts.

A common theme in science fiction is to consider the possibility of teleportation - the ability to move instantaneously between two locations, whether through natural mental abilities or mechanical means

Many science fiction stories consider the possibility of terraforming Mars - but what about the reverse: areoforming Earth?

Exotic binary and multiple star systems, so very different from our own Solar System, have captured the imagination of many astronomers. But these strange environments also captured the imagination of the public and of science fiction writers too.

Alternate histories are one of the mainstays of science fiction. A subset of these are notable for the attention they pay to our scientific history, and how it influenced the development of modern culture.

The role of organised religion in the preservation of knowledge across extended time periods has been explored in the science fiction of religious futurisms.

Looking at science fiction which considers rule by science in a variety of forms.

One of the key functions of science fiction is to explore both the potentialities and the risks of technologies, particularly those which are new or to which we aspire. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, automation has been a preoccupation of SF almost since it began.

The quest for highly extended or eternal life, in the form of longevity treatments, technological solutions or genetic improvement, has been a staple of science fiction almost since it started

The 1970s children's television SF drama "Timeslip" posed questions of scientific ethics which are still relevant to the current day.

Looking at the astronomy and the catastrophism in an early episode of The Avengers from 1963.

The Avengers was a television series that defies classification. Here I look at its SF elements and what they tell us about science in the 1960s.

"A for Andromeda" was a 1961 drama, remade in 2006. Its themes anticipate issues which are still current in astronomy today.

Looking at Jodrell Bank's representation in science fiction and SF paratexts.

A look at the Solar System of Captain W E Johns' classic juvenile science fiction series, starting with "Kings of Space" (1954)

Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex became the new home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory research organisation in a gradual transition that spanned the late 1940s and 1950s. As this article discusses, Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, and its host comic The Eagle provides a fascinating insight into the observatory at this moment of transition, as well as introducing children to the key features of a working observatory.

Exploring the relationship between astrophysicists - particularly those of Warwick Astronomy and Astrophysics - and science fiction.

The relationship between science and science fiction is a complex one.

In this short blog post I take a look at how the two may interrelate and the open questions which remain to be considered.

My essay "Who's Moon" in "Doctor Who and Science" (eds Lindy Orthia and Marcus K Harmes) has just been published. Here I explore in a little more depth two articles which present aspects of the Moon and its exploration to the avid young readers of the 1979 and 1980 Doctor Who annuals.

This blog exists to explore conceptions and representations of science or science communication through the medium of fiction. I decided to create this blog as a forum in which to present my own views and activities in this area, which are - inevitably - presented from the point of view of an active research astrophysicist, rather than a literary theorist or specialist in communications or media.