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Speculative fiction is a term which has been used in multiple related but distinct ways. Alternate history or alternative history is a subgenre of Speculative fiction (or Science fiction) and Historical fiction Fantasy is a Genre that uses magic and other Supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting Fantastic art is an art genre The parameters of fantastic art has been fairly rigourously defined in the scholarship on the subject Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes usually involving magic, Supernatural events make-believe creatures or exotic Fantasy worlds The Fantasy Genre has spawned many new Subgenres with no clear counterparts in the myths or Folklore upon which the tradition of fantasy storytelling is Though the Fantasy genre in its modern sense is less than two centuries old its antecedents have a long and distinguished history A legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature (often known as "fabulous creatures" in historical literature Fantasy literature is Fantasy in written form Historically speaking the majority of fantasy works have been literature This article is about the word for other meanings see Quest (disambiguation A quest is a journey towards a goal used in Mythology In Role-playing games and fantasy literature an artifact is a magical object with great power There are many elements that show up throughout the fantasy genre in different guises Fantasy television is a genre of Television featuring elements of the Fantastic, often including magic, Supernatural forces or exotic Fantasy There are many elements that show up throughout the fantasy genre in different guises A fantasy world is a type of Imaginary world, part of a Fictional universe used in Fantasy novels and games Horror fiction is broadly Fiction in any medium intended to scare unsettle or horrify the audience Lovecraftian horror is a sub-genre of horror Fiction which emphasizes the Psychological horror of the unknown (in some cases unknowable over gore or other The Literary genre of Science fiction is diverse and since there is little consensus of definition among scholars or devotees its origin is an open question The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is a Reference work on Science fiction. In a general sense, it is a style of fiction which speculates about the nature of unproven entities or occurrences. It also applies that question to speculative realities that do not exist now, asking questions such as "What if werewolves were real?", "What if civilization was destroyed by nuclear war?", or "What if there were this place called Middle Earth?"
In some contexts, it has been used as an inclusive term covering a group of fiction genres that speculate about worlds that are unlike the real world in various important ways. Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real More specifically fiction is an imaginative form of Narrative, one of the four basic Rhetorical modes. A genre (ˈʒɑːnrə also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/ from French "kind" or "sort" from Latin: genus (stem gener-) is a loose set In these contexts, it generally includes science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, alternate history, and magic realism. Fantasy is a Genre that uses magic and other Supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting Horror fiction is broadly Fiction in any medium intended to scare unsettle or horrify the audience Supernatural fiction is a classification of Literature used to describe Fiction exploiting or requiring as plot devices or themes some contradictions of the commonplace Superhero fiction is a subgenre of Fiction that deals with Superheroes Supervillians super-powered humans aliens, or mutants Alternate history or alternative history is a subgenre of Speculative fiction (or Science fiction) and Historical fiction Magic realism, or magical realism, is an artistic Genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even "normal" The term is used this way in academic and ideological criticism of these genres, as well as by some readers, writers, and editors of these genres. In these contexts, the term does not imply an opinion about the relative merits of any of the genres it includes. For example, this is the sense in which the term is used in the name of the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
In other contexts, the term has been used to express dissatisfaction with what some people consider the limitations of science fiction per se. For example, in Harlan Ellison's writing, the term may signal a wish not to be pigeonholed as a science fiction writer, and a desire to break out of science fiction's genre conventions in a literary and modernist direction; or to escape the prejudice with which science fiction is often met by mainstream critics[1]. Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is a prolific American Writer of Short stories, Novellas, Teleplays Genre fiction is a term for fictional works ( Novels short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific Literary genre Literary fiction is a term that has come into common usage since around 1970 principally to distinguish serious fiction (that is work with claims to Literary merit Modernist literature is the literary form of Modernism and especially High modernism; it should not be confused with modern literature, which is the history Mainstream is generally the common current of Thought of the Majority. Some readers and writers of science fiction see the term as insulting towards science fiction, and therefore as having negative connotations.
The term is often attributed to Robert A. Heinlein. Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. In his first known use of the term, in his 1948 essay "On Writing of Speculative Fiction," Heinlein used it specifically as a synonym for "science fiction"; in a later piece, he explicitly stated that his use of the term did not include fantasy. Heinlein may have come up with the term himself, but there is one earlier citation: a piece in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1889, in reference to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward: 2000–1887. Looking Backward 2000-1887 is a Utopian novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from Western Massachusetts, and was first published
The use of "speculative fiction" in the sense of expressing dissatisfaction with science fiction was popularized in the 1960s and early 1970s by Judith Merril and other writers and editors, in connection with the New Wave movement. Judith Josephine Grossman ( January 21, 1923 - September 12, 1997) who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945 was an New Wave is a term applied to Science fiction writing characterized by a high degree of experimentation both in form and in content and a Highbrow and self-consciously It fell into disuse around the mid 1970s.
In more recent times, the term has come into wider use again, and gained the neutral inclusive sense as a convenient collective term for a set of genres. Its modern meaning depends on the speaker and the context.
A variation on this term is "speculative literature. " "Speculative fiction" is sometimes abbreviated "spec-fic," "S-F," "SF," or "sf. " Care with context is needed in the use of such shorthand, as those last three abbreviations are more commonly used to mean just "science fiction. "
Academic journals which publish essays on speculative fiction include Femspec, Extrapolation, and Foundation. An academic journal is a peer-reviewed Periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular Academic discipline is published An essay is usually a short piece of writing It is often written from an author's personal point of view. Femspec is a Feminist academic journal specializing in speculative fiction including Science fiction, Fantasy, magical realism mythic explorations in Extrapolation is an American journal of academic essays on Speculative fiction. Foundation The International Review of Science Fiction is a critical journal founded in 1972
See also
- Frank Collection
- Hugo Award
- Hugo Award for Best Related Book
- Nebula Award
- New Weird
External links
- Dictionary citations for the term "speculative fiction"
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The SF Page at Project Gutenberg of Australia
Dictionary
speculative fiction
-noun
- (uncountable) A class of fiction including but not necessarily limited to fantasy, horror and science fiction, dealing with worlds, themes and characters not part of everyday life.
- (countable) A particular work belonging to this class.
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