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Asteroids have appeared in fiction since at least the late 1800s, the first one—Ceres—having been discovered in 1801. They were initially only used infrequently as writers preferred the planets as settings. The once popular Phaëton hypothesis, which states that the asteroid belt consists of the remnants of the former fifth planet that existed in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter before somehow being destroyed, has been a recurring theme with various explanations for the planet's destruction proposed. This hypothetical former planet is in science fiction often called "Bodia" in reference to Johann Elert Bode, for whom the since discredited Titius–Bode law that predicts the planet's existence is named. By the early 1900s, the asteroids started making more regular appearances. The asteroid field has often been depicted as having asteroids so close together as to impede travel, though this became less common later in the century as writers started portraying a more realistic density. Because the asteroids are so small, they are usually not depicted as inhabited—though in some works they are nevertheless habitable. In other works they are made so by human activity, be it terraforming or hollowing out to create habitats on the inside. The latter concept has also been used for turning asteroids into spacecraft. Human activity in the asteroid belt has featured frequently since the pulp era of science fiction, particularly in the form of asteroid mining. Space piracy also debuted as a theme around the same time. In works where the asteroid belt is settled by humans, it is often conceptually similar to the Wild West. The threat of impact events by asteroids has been a recurring theme. It received successive boosts in popularity following the end of World War II (possibly as a result of nuclear anxiety), the 1980 publication of the Alvarez hypothesis about the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the 1994 impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 on Jupiter. Many stories involve attempts to alter asteroid trajectories to avert such collisions, while in some stories they are instead caused intentionally.

Alien life on asteroids appears only rarely in fiction, owing to their small size. Humans stranded on an asteroid encounter hostile aliens in Clark Ashton Smith's 1932 short story "Master of the Asteroid" and Edmond Hamilton's 1933 short story "The Horror on the Asteroid". The titular reptilian of Eden Phillpotts's 1938 novel Saurus comes to Earth from an asteroid as an egg before hatching, and an asteroid is likewise the homeworld of the title character in Antoine de Saint Exupéry's 1943 novel The Little Prince. The concept of hollowing out asteroids has also extended to turning them into large spacecraft, as in Murray Leinster's 1960 novel The Wailing Asteroid. Hollowed out asteroids used as prisons in interstellar space appear in Zebrowski's 1998 novel Brute Orbits, and the asteroid Sidonia is converted into another generation ship in the 2014–2015 anime series Knights of Sidonia. Settlement in the asteroid belt is in fiction often associated with a fiercely independent, libertarian minded, frontier mentality akin to that of the Old West. Anderson's 1970 fix up novel Tales of the Flying Mountains recounts the history of such a society and the development of its particular culture, and Larry Niven's stories of Known Space, such as the 1975 short story collection Tales of Known Space, depict a community of hardened asteroid miners known as "Belters". Colonized asteroids also appear in games such as the Warhammer 40,000 franchise and the 2009 tabletop role playing game Eclipse Phase.

The threat of asteroidal impact events is a recurring theme. In the 1916–1917 serial "The Moonmaker" by Arthur Cheney Train and Robert W. Wood, an errant asteroid is diverted to enter Earth orbit as an additional natural satellite instead of striking the Earth, a plot point that recurs in Isaac R. Nathanson's 1930 short story "The Falling Planetoid". In Walter Kateley's 1930 short story "The World of a Hundred Men", a record of an inhabited asteroid's history leading up to its collision with Earth is found underneath Meteor Crater in Arizona. The asteroid impact motif increased in popularity from the 1950s onward, possibly as a result of nuclear anxiety following World War II. In Clarke's 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama, a disastrous asteroid impact motivates humanity to keep close track of Solar System objects thereafter. Clarke revisited the theme in 1993 with the novel The Hammer of God, which revolves around efforts to avert the disaster. and in 1994 with the collision of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with Jupiter. The latter in particular is credited with inspiring a large number of disaster films and other on screen portrayals of impact events or threats thereof—be they by asteroids or other objects such as comets—in the years that followed. Among these are the 1997 TV miniseries Asteroid and the 1998 film Armageddon; the concept had earlier appeared in the 1979 film Meteor. Brian Stableford writes in Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia that by the beginning of the new millennium, asteroidal impact events and climate change were the two most popular scenarios in apocalyptic fiction. Altering asteroid trajectories, besides being a means to avert impact events as in Roger MacBride Allen's 1988 novel Farside Cannon, also appears in fiction as a way to cause them. In Bob Shaw's 1981 novel The Ceres Solution, Ceres is deliberately crashed into the Moon. Impact events are occasionally weaponized; Earth is targeted with asteroids in this manner by aliens as a form of interplanetary warfare in Heinlein's 1959 novel Starship Troopers, Niven and Jerry Pournelle's 1985 novel Footfall, and David Feintuch's 1996 novel Fisherman's Hope. A human redirects asteroids from the distant Oort cloud towards Earth in an act of attempted mass murder in Don Bingle's 2002 short story "Patience", and an asteroid is set on a collision course with one of the moons of Neptune to create an additional planetary ring in Alastair Reynolds's 2012 short story "Vainglory", while another human caused—but this time unintentional—impact event appears in Stephen Baxter's 1997 novel Titan. Asteroid diversion also appears in Charles L. Harness's 2000 time travel story "A Boost in Time" in an attempt to save the dinosaurs from extinction.