Just like this. Alien invasion: “War of the Worlds”-H.G. Wells. “Footfall”-Niven and Pournelle
Ultra-far future:
Definitive: Jack Vance’s “Dying Earth” stories.
Newer example: Gen Wolfe’s “Book of the New Sun”.
Time Travel: The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
Military SF:
Definitive: Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers”.
Newer: Pierce Brown’s “Red Rising”.
Funny, that’s the very one I was thinking of as the newer example of time travel, with Wells’ “Time Machine” as the definitive.
Wells’ The Time Machine was one of the first, but I don’t think I would call it definitive. There’s no whiff of the paradoces, genies, or other self-referential loops that make time travel distinctively what it is.
Point taken. And amusing user name/post content combo!
“A Sound of Thunder” then?
" By His Bootstraps" and " ‘—All You Zombies—’ " might be the definitive ones for time travel involving paradoxes. Both by Robert A. Heinlein
Cyberpunk: Neuromancer.
The tough category would be Dystopian, since there are a gazillion types (AI, EMP, EE, post-invasion, post-pandemic, post-Rapture, all the political types, it goes on and on.)
I’d have to say that the definitive dystopia would have to be either 1984 or Brave New World. Post-apoc isn’t really the same thing as dystopia.
(though you could make a claim that those are the newer examples, and that the original was Plato’s Republic)
Robots, AI:
Definitive: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Newer: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Large numbers of SF books today contain AIs. I mentioned Ann Leckie because she put an interesting and innovative twist on the idea.
Galactic Empire.
Definitive: Dune
Newer: Warhammer 40,000
Stranded astronaut.
Definitive: Enemy Mine.
Newer: The Martian.
Post-Apocalypse.
Definitive: By the Waters of Babylon, by Stephen Vincent Benét
Newer: the Mad Max movies.
Alternate History: Definitive: Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Moore.
Newer: Resurrection Day: Brandon Dubois
Post apocalyptic, “Alas Babylon” by Pat Frank
“One Second After” by William R. Forstchen
The definitive newer post-apocalyptic has got to be the only trilogy in which every single book won the Hugo: NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. It’s truly a singular achievement.
Totalitarian state that controls people through force and fear.
Definitive: 1984
Newer: The Hunger Games
Totalitarian state that controls people through decadence and debauchery.
Definitive: Brave New World
Newer: Logan’s Run
Science fiction mystery/whodunit
Definitive: The Caves of Steel (Isaac Asimov)
Newer: Illegal Alien (Robert J. Sawyer)
(anybody got a better and/or more recent example?)