Not to cause waves with my first post, but I’ve always been a bit bemused by the term “speculative fiction.” I mean, isn’t that a little redundant? Isn’t all fiction speculative, in the sense that it’s speculating on what might have been, could be, or will be — toying with answers to that old “what if?” question, in one way or another? A story that answers the question, “what if your best friend took a gun to school and shot up a few teachers?” seems to me just as speculative as one that answers the question, “what if a teen were among the first colonists on the moon?” — but only the latter would be dubbed speculative.
To me, applying “speculative fiction” to sci-fi and fantasy seems to be a sort of big word for “not real.” As if the things that happen in a contemporary YA — say, Gossip Girls — are somehow more real. Or more likely. Uh, really? How much more? And I think the categorization sometimes needlessly turns off potential readers. But maybe I’m over-analyzing.
What do you think?
Parker Peevyhouse
lindajoysingleton
Joni Sensel
Chris Eboch
Nick
Greg R. Fishbone
It does seem like a redundant term! Besides the fact that it’s a little hard to figure out what’s supposed to fall under the term “speculative.”
Totally agree. Speculative always sounded a bit all inclusive.
But the “not real” thing may be the key.
So does speculative emcompass sci-fi and fantasy (all kinds) then? Are vampires speculative fiction? Outer space? Fairies?
Let’s speculate a bit about it
All fiction relies on made-up events and characters, but speculative fiction relies on made-up worlds. I like the term “speculative” very much, by the way. It gets rid of the messy overlap at the edges of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Instead of putting those three subgenres onto a Venn Diagram that defines eight regions of overlap, you can simply draw a bigger box and label it “speculative fiction”.
I feel the same way about the term “fantasy.” All fiction is fantasy, to one degree or another.
Whoops, forgot to leave my name etc. The prior comment is mine.
Thanks for the comments! Good point about “fantasy,” J.” And I’m going to diasgree with you on this one, Greg:
“All fiction relies on made-up events and characters, but speculative fiction relies on made-up worlds.”
There’s nothing made up about the world of, for instance, How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, or The Compound by Steph Bodeen, or a lot of other “hard” science fiction that’s set in the reasonably near future of earth. One of the oft-quoted criteria of science fiction is that the technology has to be plausible, and not uncommonly it actually exists and is simply not commercialized yet.
I guess the bottom line might be that all labels — even fiction and nonfiction, frequently (as in some recent well-publicized examples) — are approximations and generalizations, when the real point may simply be “story?”
We all have our pet labels and pet rules for applying them. I happen to include near-future science fiction in the same category as other speculative world settings. It may be a more plausible and realistic world than you find in high fantasy or space opera, but it’s still different from our world in some fundamental way.