One of my favorite tropes is “It was Earth all along.” And its variants. The touchstone example is, of course, the original Planet of the Apes.

The problem with this trope is that it is so hard to discuss without spoilers. By definition, the trope should be a surprise, but not an out-of-the-blue twist. You should be able to look back and see the signs. So, if I tell you the book has the trope, I’m…ruining the trope.

I do indeed find this highly frustrating. Which is why I’m going to have some fun.

I’m going to talk about ways people have used this trope, but not name the books!

It was Not Earth All Along

Any good trope can be subverted or reversed, and this one is no exception. The book I’m thinking of looks like it’s one of those “Earth so far in the future everything has changed” books like Gene Wolfe’s New Sun, Michael Swanwick’s Chasing the Phoenix, or Jason Sanford’s Plague Birds.

Spoiler.

It’s not Earth. Slowly you realize things aren’t quite right here and there. Why are lifespans half of what they used to be? Why are people taller? Why is global cooling the catastrophe?

Spoiler!

It’s actually…a terraformed Mars.

No, It’s Not Alternate History

So, here’s another one. One of the favorite tropes of alternate history, especially for a certain demographic, is “Rome never fell.”

Personally, I’m not a fan, mostly because I can’t actually envision the necessary series of events. Rome fell differently, sure. But Rome was pretty unstable, all things considered.

In this book, we’re led to believe that’s what’s going on.

Spoiler.

It’s not. It’s a far future where powerful people have rebuilt society after a catastrophe along the lines of Rome, for social control of course. Given how many of a certain demographic are obsessed with Rome…

And yes, it’s all out dystopia.

A Weird City in Twisted Space-Time

This one’s older and I could probably get away with spoilers, given it’s actually almost as old as I am, but I have to follow the rules I set.

In this book, people live in a city that definitely appears to not be on Earth, or even anywhere with the same laws of physics. The city moves along tracks at a rate of 0.1 mile per day towards the “optimum.” Workers remove the old tracks and relay them in front of the city.

They recruit people from outside, especially fertile women (for some reason, their women produce more boys).

Then a guy leaves to take some of those women home…and it turns out that space and time are distorted outside the city.

Turns out that the people of the city just have messed up perceptions from exposure to a power source…and now the city has hit the Atlantic coast of Europe.

It’s really weird.

In Space All Along

This one’s a movie…where the dystopia the characters are trapped in is assumed to be somewhere on Earth.

In fact, it’s in space.  This isn’t one of my favorite ones because it really kind of…relies so much on your assumptions instead of showing any hints it might be Earth.

Which means you don’t have many chances to guess it ahead of time. But it’s still a good neo-noir movie if you can work out which one it is.

(It’s the one with the city that keeps changing configurations).

(As a note, the Matrix also inverts the Earth All Along trope in a way, although you are, in fact, on Earth because that’s where the computer is).

We Actually Ended Up Back Home

Generation ships are another favorite trope of mine, and one standard subtrope is the generation ship actually makes it back to its origin world and recolonizes.

Usually, this isn’t as intentional as in the book I’m thinking of. It’s unclear whether the planet they left is, in fact, Earth.

But it’s their Earth, so it might as well be.

(Of course, there’s also the common trope of the generation ship colonizing a planet that turns out to be Earth because we don’t like to admit we evolved from smaller primates. Ahem.)

A variant of this is, of course, we never left at all, and I’m remembering a terrible movie that did this one, but I don’t remember the title – my husband probably does.

So…I know there’s a ton more out there, but it’s not a popular trope these days. Mostly because everyone can guess it too fast due to the osmosis of popular culture.

Just don’t use the Statue of Liberty, which really makes it too obvious. (Spaceballs had some fun with that). And, interestingly, the new Planet of the Apes movie uses the book ending.

Which I, despite loving the original, also love. Just saying.'