Men dressed in white space suits work as killing machines with large helmets and laser guns in Star Wars . Large worms roam through deserts on a planet that produces the universe’s most valuable commodity in Dune . Perfectly modeled androids think and act like humans without conscious minds in Blade Runner .

Science fiction can seem a little ridiculous, but its audience is very loyal despite the negative stereotypes, according to Alex Ronke, a senior in computer science and creative writing.

“It has that weird, nerd stereotype,” he said. “Because people see the extremes of when people dress up for movies or for Star Trek conventions. They are just having fun; it’s just not socially acceptable.”

Melinda Thielbar, a doctoral student in statistics, has experienced the negative stereotyping. She began writing science fiction during her undergraduate studies in economics.

“I’ve always wanted to write science fiction,” she said. “It occurred to me in college that people do get paid to write.”

She enrolled in a writing class and the professor had the students tell their favorite author and the style in which they like to write. While other students spouted their love of Grazia Deledda and Vladimir Nabokov, Thielbar admitted her inclination towards science fiction.

“The reaction was confusion,” she said. “I could hear them thinking ‘she likes stories about giant robots.'”

The problem with science fiction stereotypes resounds in a plethora of poor literature, according to John Kessel, professor in English and a published science fiction author.

“Bad science fiction doesn’t think through premises very well; [it is] all about blowing things up. While good science fiction appeals to complex emotions and social issues,” he said.

Ronke agrees with Kessel.

“There is so much pulp and trash in science fiction, and that seems more prevalent in peoples’ minds,” he said. “There are plenty of shows on the Sci Fi channel, video games that don’t challenge anything in the genre, and rows and rows of books — it’s hard to distinguish the good from the bad.”

Science fiction dreams images that are far beyond current technology — worlds of fantastical structures and weapons but plagued with the same social and philosophical questions of today.

Writing good science fiction is incredibly difficult because of the creative and social elements that must be included, while making the story believable, according to Kessel.

Ian Nichols, a junior in history and creative writing, enjoys science fiction that divulges into psychological aspects, such as A Clockwork Orange , and is currently writing a story about a war in the future.

“I love military history, and my story is set in a future war. I don’t like spaceships and aliens,” he said.

Thielbar, who has had two short stories published entitled “The Ghost of Me” and “Without a Net,” enjoys writing character-driven science fiction with characters that are “bigger than life.”

She identified two traps that science fiction writers often fall into: the “science will save us” trap and the “puzzle story.”

The “science will save us” trap is when writers concoct worlds without problems because science is there to save everyone. The “puzzle story” is when a scientific trinket solves everything in the story in the last few pages.

Thielbar recognized that along with the negative stereotypes and the difficult nature of writing science fiction, a lot of it is difficult for people to understand if they are not used to reading it.

“Science fiction is getting better, but I think for some people it is an unfamiliar world and it is hard for them to contextualize,” she said.

However, science fiction lurks in places people don’t expect, as it gives people a non-threatening way to talk about issues that are difficult, Thielbar said.

“It’s a playground for ethics and playground for possibility,” Ronke said.

Nichols identified sources of science fiction that people wouldn’t expect and could help introduce them into the genre.

“I think science fiction has this really bad stigma, but comic books, graphic novels [and] TV shows, such as LOST , all have elements of science fiction in them,” he said. “Hopefully, it will be as accepted as nonfiction or serious fiction.”