Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion
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Speculative vs Science Fiction
Speculative fiction is a broader, more general term that can cover sci-fi, fantasy, horror, paranormal...or even some mainstream fiction with certain elements of the above.As with all genres there is no set clear cut definition and you're going to have any number of interpretations of this term.
It's hard enough to get people to agree what the difference between SF and Fantasy is. So I tend to fall back on the "what is the real purpose of genres anyway?" question. IMO, they are only really useful as marketing tools to point people in a general direction. The more you try to nail down a genre definition, the more embroiled you become in rules lawyer arguments. I've seen endless discussions and flame wars arguing about genres in both books and music, and it's all pointless.
And...Margaret Atwood's discussion on the term:http://www.webcitation.org/5p62J8qGz
"Once the term went into popular use, editors, readers, academics and some writers developed a tendency to think of speculative fiction as an umbrella term covering everything from science fiction and fantasy to magical realism. Under this definition, every novel that is not highly invested in "realism" could be called "speculative fiction." People who embrace this term, e.g. the prolific on-line reviewer of speculative fiction, D.D. Shade, argue that the excessive sub-genres within genres like science fiction and the growing tendency of writers to draw from several sub-genres and genres within their work makes a more general term useful."
Hmm...after reading the whole article, I'm not so sure it's actually by Atwood. Anyway, I think it covers all the important bases.
Mod
It was a way of saying 'hey if you like SFF, horror or one of the similar genres this group could be for you.' Ultimately I'll read anything - everytime I say I don't read a certain genre I find an exception, so anything goes. Except 'A Streetcar named Desire.' You couldn't pay me to suffer through that play again!
I think Micah has a point in that genre is really only a useful marketing tool and roadmap so that a reader can find books she likes in book store.
I also think you have a point too, Garry. Sci-fi conjures up immediate images of high technology, space craft, aliens etc. like Lyra's Alethieometer though, the next rung down in interpretation might include The Handmaid's Tale, or Sherri Tepper's Grass; Earth Abides or even Shakespeare's Tempest. So speculative could be a handy umbrella term for so many sub genres.
Ultimately I think it becomes subjective. Some people would call Alien a sci-fi film. I think it's a horror flick set in space. Depends which elements you take away from a book or film most strongly I guess.
Hi Micah and thanks for kicking off the discussion!That's an insightful passage, even if it's not by Atwood herself!
It's also interesting to think about the sci-fi/fantasy crossover. Fantasy immediately makes me think of 'other worlds', where as sci-fi makes me think of 'possible worlds', but that's just my intuition.
Also, the 'science' element of sci-fi would often seem to stand in opposition to the world of fantasy. We like to think that sci-fi is a projection of possible technology and social development, whereas Fantasy is meta-fiction, often echoing historical periods, and feels more unlimited.
It reminds me of an argument I hear about the recent Dr Who series - that is feels more Harry Potter than 'sci-fi' - i.e, more 'magical'. But yet, these two genres do tend to attract the same fans.
I thought speculative fiction was a way to narrow the definitions away from certain 'types' of sci-fi, so it's interesting to see you think it opens up a broader list of genre's.
I could write an essay about this! (I won't).
Micah wrote: "And...Margaret Atwood's discussion on the term:
http://www.webcitation.org/5p62J8qGz
"Once the term went into popular use, editors, readers, academics and some writers developed a tendency to thi..."
Hi J.AI think we cross posted so I hadn't seen your reply.
Yeah, for convenience sake, it sets apart a whole massive host of sub-genre's.
I also play in an original band, and it's a bit like being asked what genre we are. We all cringe at the question, because if we say 'Rock' that could mean anything from The Monkey's to Bryan Adams!
Maybe I've jumped on the term 'speculative fiction' because that's what I think represent my stories better than sci-fi, but because lots of sites don't give you the option to 'drill down' any further, 'sci-fi' it is usually!
I agree that Alien is horror in space, but then, the realisation of the Nostromo, the 'company', space mining colonies and such like, was very sci-fi! A great example of a good cross-over!
J.A. wrote: "I have to admit I included 'speculative' in the groups title and MO mostly out of laziness (or inclusion - you decide!) - I basically wanted to cover all bases. Everyone will have heard of sci-fi a..."
J.A. wrote: "...sparkly-vampire-unicorn punk..."That's actually the name of a hipster indie band in the San Francisco bay area.
This is what I think of when I hear the following terms:Science Fiction: everything from Philip K. Dick's paranoid drug-culture pseudo-biographical threnody, A Scanner Darkly to the science-fantasy lightsaber swashbuckler Star Wars. Stark social commentary like 1984 to the comic/absurdist entertainment of Robert Schekley's Dimension of Miracles (eat your heart out, Douglas Adams!).
Fantasy: Tolkien...and then a bunch of other stuff that's uninteresting and full of sword and magic and dragon and junk (beyond Tolkien, I'm not interested, sorry!).
Speculative Fiction: All the above plus a bunch of other stuff, a lot of it being stuff that the authors didn't want to admit was SF or fantasy or some mix of the two.
Aliens? It's a science fiction monster movie.
Mod
That's actually the name of a hipster indie band in the San Francisco bay area."
No way!
J.A. wrote: "Micah wrote: "J.A. wrote: "...sparkly-vampire-unicorn punk..."That's actually the name of a hipster indie band in the San Francisco bay area."
No way!"
Well...OK...you got me. It was a joke. But it SHOULD be the name of a hipster indie band in SF.
Yes it should! (I might steal that name for my band!)Good definition! (especially fantasy - I love Tolkein, and enjoy Pratchett, but never gone anywhere else for my fantasy fix - though am considering Game of Thrones given how much I'm enjoying the TV adaptation).
I would have put 1984 as speculative fiction in my mind, but that's what's interesting about opening up the question.
Dare I ask this, but when does any of this become meta-fiction?!
(I'm logging off now, but will be back tomorrow to find out!)
I like "speculative." I write "horror," but much of my work isn't hardcore horror. It's more along the lines of early Ray Bradbury, who was a major influence.
Mod
Hi Michael, personally I
Think there's a lot to be said for more subtle forms of horror. Early Bradbury is a great example. I have difficulty writing scary scenes - disturbing or unnerving I can do. But the usual jumpy- looking-around scary is hard. I don't find most horror frightening. Things that cause dee states of existential anxst freak me out. I spend days or even weeks trying to resolve the problem. Twelve Monkeys is a good example as is 28 days/ weeks later. The gore and 'fright factor' don't get me, it's the bit where it looks like the survivors have made it and then you're given a clue that actually they really are doomed - one infected person got away.
And I love horror. I just find it more cuddly than I'm supposed to. I worry about my state of mind...
Exposing some ignorance here Garry, what is meta-fiction exactly? I've never heard that expression.
J.A., I worry, too! Not very much disturbs me, either. It's hard to find good scary. Books and movies both. Even Stephen King isn't frightening , like I hear people say.
Mod
I love the term 'cuddly horror' J.A! That should be a new genre ("Come here Zombie hordes, let me squeeze you")Hello Michael - thanks for joining in!
Scary is quite subjective isn't it? I call it the 'Blair Witch' affect. For some reason that build up of suspense even though next to nothing actually happens until the end, scared me more than any conventional horror/paranormal film ever has. But some people just do not get it at all (which is fine). I suppose that's why I quite like the paranormal experience films too (at the least the first few) - because they are about tension rather than gore (which bores me). I love Zombie films, but they don't scare me - I like the survival element more than anything I think.
I'm reading a collection of Ghost Stories compiled by Roald Dahl at the moment, and even though they are some of the best ghost short stories ever written, I'm still waiting for one that gives me a chill! I enjoy them, but they don't 'scare me' as such. Psychological stuff is probably more affective - like you said, a dark twist can stick with you for a long time...
Meta-fiction: Have you read any Will Self or Martin Amis? I take it to mean 'worlds with different rules' - so for example, in Amis' 'Times Arrow' the world is running backwards in time, and in Self's 'How the dead live' - all the dead people have communities that carry on alongside the living.
So basically to qualify as 'meta'(I think) there has to be a fundamental change in the natural rules of the world (it's a philosophy thing, metaphysics, but I won't bore you with all that! I'm just finishing a philosophy degree)
I would describe some of my stories as 'meta' but it's not a well used term, and they can just as easily fall back into speculative/science fiction anyway.
J.A. wrote: "Ha! Micah you almost had me there - it was almost bizarre enough to be true ;)
Hi Michael, personally I
Think there's a lot to be said for more subtle forms of horror. Early Bradbury is a great ex..."
...just realised how much I said the words 'scare me' in the last post...
Mod
Yep. Cuddly horror - the new genre: Care Bears with fangs; zombies that just need to be helped across the street; ghosts that turn up to do good deeds like tell you winning lottery numbers. It's clearly a winner ;)
I've read a few of Self's - not kept up with his views on the form. Aware he grates on some people though!Alternate/future history would still take place in a world with the same natural laws, but with different events I think. Whereas for meta, something fundamental (like say, we can all fly like birds) has to be different about how that world is constructed in the first place.
Of course you could have both - flying Romans who invented the microchip two thousand years early for example (don't think that would make the best novel!)
Trying to think of some cuddly horror titles - only got one at the moment, but it's a film:
"A lovely dream about bunnies on Elm Street."
And maybe:
"The Woman in Polka Dot"
... I'm going to be thinking about this all day and night now..
Cuddly horror titles? How about: Carrie goes to the park
and
Cujo and the other friendly puppies
For some reason I can only think of Stephen King titles right now.
Mod
Those are some great titles. How about;
The well-intentioned dead
Or
30 days of sunshine
Garry wrote: "So basically to qualify as 'meta'(I think) there has to be a fundamental change in the natural rules of the world (it's a philosophy thing, metaphysics, but I won't bore you with all that! I'm just finishing a philosophy degree)..."That's actually something quite different from metafiction. "Meta" as it's used today means "beyond" and is used as a prefix to indicate "a concept which is an abstraction from another concept."
For example, amongst my gaming friends we talk about "metagamming" wherein one would build their character consciously to exploit the rules and mechanics of the game, rather than building your character scrictly by role playing. Metagamers work from the game system down to the character, while role players work from a character concept and let the game system handle their character as it will.
So "metafiction" is actaully talking about literature that blurs the lines between fiction and reality. I think wikipedia's description of it is quite good:
"[A] literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually using irony and self-reflection."
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five is a good example of it where there are obviously a lot of fictional--even Sci-Fi--elements blended in with events of a truly autobiographical nature.
So has the term 'Speculative Fiction' made actual science fiction more respectable to mainstream readers, more approachable, commercial or acceptable? Is 'Speculative' really just SF fiction under it all?
Should the 'Speculative' label only really be applied to more literary authors such as Ballard or Atwood, or those who just sometimes dip into science fiction, and in more challengingly philosphical ways? (Though the greatest SF fiction is regularly just that)
Mod
Has anyone else come across the same literary snobbiness when they've said they write / read SFF? I certainly have! Not that true literary novels are bad - I'm a big Attwood fan, especially her dystopian efforts . In her book 'in other worlds' Attwood describes here understanding of spec fic to encompass anything with sci-fi, slip stream, fantastical elements. It is also worth noting that while Margaret Attwood is a great literary writer, she has said herself that she champions wattpad because it promotes all kinds of writing not just the literary. And also because she enjoys sneaking on there under a pseudonym and dashing off stories about vampires and zombies that would be considered 'pulp'.
The definition of a literary novel is nearly as slippery as speculative. It's usually only decided that a novel is literary at the marketing stage by big five publishers (or six depending on who you count). It's certainly a big no-no to approach an agent or a publisher describing your novel as literary or having magical realism. They absolutely hate that!
When I was doing Roger Dolby's Science Fiction course at the University of Kent, we did quite a lot of work on the definition of science fiction. First of all, nothing could be called science fiction that came before the term existed (it was coined in the 1920s I believe) - so HG Wells, Verne etc cannot be considered science fiction because they wrote before the genre was effectively 'invented' by being named. ('Scientifiction' was another popular name at the time but fell out of favour. The term 'scientific romance' has been described as what Wells et al wrote) The definition of science fiction created by the first fanzines was any literature exploring scientific ideas. A lot of pulp SF was actually barely worthy of the name, and was considered 'popular science' by the purists, as it was not really about the ideas - it just used, say, space travel as a setting for an adventure. I dare say a lot of what's now called 'space opera' would also fall into the 'popular science' category, unless it's 'hard science' of the Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross variety. (In that course, we tended to consider fantasy as something that grew out of SF, but where SF used the rules of our world/universe, fantasy invented a different set of rules).In short, I find it useful to have an umbrella term, because the more specific categories won't stay still.
Cuddly horror titles... well... James Herbert's 'The Squirrels'?
Not impressed by the definition. 'The Novel' is regarded as having had a reasonably consistent history of about 2000 years, which predates the Italian word novella from which we get the term :-)
I actually look on the term "spceculative fiction" in a very similar way as the term (in the U.S.) "progressive" which started being used instead of "liberal" when the Republican Party's media messaging successfully turned "liberal" into a pejorative.Science Fiction and Fantasy have long had that perjorative taint. "Speculative Fiction" has a nice neutral tint.
The funny thing is, in books I think SF and Fantasy have both simultaneously become more accepted by the general public, AND dennegrated by the "serious" literary crowd for the same reason: the all-pervasivness of SF/F in popular TV and movies.
TV and movies have made the genres much less geeky and more accepted to the general public. But TV and movie SF/F are so bad that if you associate SF/F books with them, they really do look a bit shoddy! ];P
So literary snobs will be looking around and saying, "well, if the punters like all this SF/F TV and movie crap, then obviously SF/F books are crap, too and I don't want anything to do with it."
Yeah...I'm not a huge fan of what TV/movies have done with the genres.
P.S. The ironic thing is that for quite a while, general fiction books have been including traditionally SF themes. Quiet, like, so as not to catch the taint.
Jim wrote: "Not impressed by the definition. 'The Novel' is regarded as having had a reasonably consistent history of about 2000 years, which predates the Italian word novella from which we get the term :-)"Has it though? Are those preceding works genuinely novels? The term comes from 'new', i.e. a new form of writing, even though long-form prose works had existed before. Some writing about scientific ideas had existed before the term science fiction existed, but it did not inhabit a cohesive category of fiction. We have to look at these things in their historical context.
In any event, when science fiction as we understand it today was new, there was a concerted effort to define it as a new thing. If SF is not the fictional exploration of scientific ideas, what is it? Speculative fiction is by nature much broader.
Oh I'd say they were. And when a book like The Satyricon was written, it was novel. It's the book that makes Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas look derivative It's the stuff written in the last century that isn't novel :-)
Not what I mean. When the novel exploded as a form in the 18th century, it was literally defined by its newness. Would we have had the experimental genius of Tristram Shandy or Clarissa, the profusion of ideas and voices if the form had not been considered new? Anything before that is a proto-novel. It's like trying to class Lawrence Sterne as a postmodernist. Did a lot of what he did have strong similarities with postmodernism? Yes. Is he a postmodernist? Well not unless he had a time machine. Equally, nobody before the 1920s sat down to write science fiction, because they couldn't have done, because science fiction did not exist - neither the name nor the idea.To me the debate is interesting because it seems there are moves in some quarters to try and get back to a situation before science fiction existed as a separate phenomenon, and the particular use of the term 'speculative fiction' as 'SF but acceptable/literary' is a sign of that. People want to explore the effect of scientific ideas on humanity through literature, but without the label. To me, speculative fiction as a term is different from science fiction because the latter has a fixed definition and the latter is essentially protean.
Hi jumping in here. When I first read the term "speculative fiction" (spec-fic?) I thought "OK, like Harry Turtledove's alternative histories?" Seems you can speculate about more than just science, so it's a broader scope. But yeah, there's also this long-running snobbery about sci-fi, even in movies and TV (look at the track record of the genre with Oscars and Emmys).
Vickie wrote: "Hi jumping in here. When I first read the term "speculative fiction" (spec-fic?) I thought "OK, like Harry Turtledove's alternative histories?" Seems you can speculate about more than just science, so it's a broader scope. But yeah, there's also this long-running snobbery about sci-fi, even in movies and TV (look at the track record of the genre with Oscars and Emmys). ..."Don't worry Vickie, if it makes money or sells then it's cheap, trashy, popular and cannot be art :-)
Matthew wrote: "Not what I mean. When the novel exploded as a form in the 18th century, it was literally defined by its newness. Would we have had the experimental genius of Tristram Shandy or Clarissa, the profus..."The only place we differ is that I push to proto-novel back to about 300BC :)
The Jews in Alexandria used to write updated versions of Old Testament books as novels and entertainment as well as because they were supposedly morally improving :-)
I've a feeling there were ancient Greek examples of longform prose fiction that may pre-date that - I vaguely recall there was one about Daphnis and Chloe. They don't really have anything to do with the modern novel though. They're literary fossils.There's a debate about whether books such as Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go or Cormac McCarthy's The Road are science fiction. I wonder if The Road is really so very different from what JG Ballard was doing in the 60s, though Ballard's novels of catastrophe (a subgenre of SF that goes in and out of style) focussed on the specific nature of a cataclysm and at least included the scientific ideas behind them. The main difference though, is that they are by 'literary' authors. No-one ever had any trouble calling Margaret Atwood's SF books SF, so why the change now? Atwood has won the Booker and the Arthur C Clarke awards, so why have we suddenly got sniffy about SF?
Further to my previous, it seems that Atwood dislikes the term SF (apologies if I have missed this in discusssions above) and prefers 'speculative fiction' because 'science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen'. To which I say 'Do you even know what science fiction is?'SF writer amd proud
Matthew wrote: "...'science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen'."Um, hullo? How did we get to the moon? You haven't seen some of the things that evolved in nature? To me, science fiction is fiction drawing on scientific possibilities including space travel, genetics, and so on. Alternative history OTOH isn't necessarily science-focused, but it is speculative, but there's a lot of overlap.
This sounds like some of the contention I've heard between "hard" and "soft" sci-fi, the latter focusing on things like culture and language. I'm now reading a novel that combines elements of both, so which sub-genre should it fit into? Whatever, I'm hooked on "Lamikorda", reading a couple chapters a day.
Matthew wrote: "When the novel exploded as a form in the 18th century, it was literally defined by its newness..."Well, I'd contend that the novel (in form if not in name) is much older than that.
Back in the 15th century there were works like Tirant Lo Blanc for instnace. Written about 1490. (A translation of it is available free at Project Gutenberg, BTW) To me it reads as a novel, not a proto-novel. It's a chivalric romance but it's not mythology like the Authurian romances. It's pure fiction, and some say a satire, laced with some historic documentation of 15th century warfare.
Interesting article on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/books/book...
Matthew wrote: "If SF is not the fictional exploration of scientific ideas, what is it?..."He, he. I always think peole put way too much emphasis on that. I've read tons of purely SF novels that really don't explore scientific ideas at all. They use the trappings of science to do other things like social criticism, comedy, just to entertain or freak you out.
Dimension of Miracles: Rockets, FTL travel, multi-dimensional universe . . . but it's really just using those as plot devices to make a comedic/abusrdist point about the dullness of normal life.
A Maze of Death: Virtual reality, colonization of other worlds, miniaturized spy drones . . . but this is really a book about insanity and questioning what the nature of reality is, and how you can distinguish it from illusion and madness.
The Petrovitch Trilogy: post nuclear terrorist setting . . . but really it's an action/adventure bit of entertainment.
I'd say that with the exception of the Hard SF genre, most SF simply uses high tech stuff (accurate or not), future settings and all the normal SF trappings as a means to accomplish a different end. Exploration of the scientific ideas themselves take a backseat.
Not that any of that is bad. I really only read SF.
Blimey - I go out for a day and all this happens!We've gone back to 300BC, and colonised other planets just by talking about it!
But isn't that the beauty of science-fiction as we all understand it collectively (if you were to accept all these definitions)? - it straddles so much. Time and Dimension travelling, space exploration, distant and near future's - Utopia, dystopia. Technological and biological adaptations and evolution... the list goes on... and then, to make it even better, there is still a STORY (usually) that is played out in the middle of all that.
It is a great form to work and immerse yourself in, whatever you call it. There's no doubting that!
Garry-I completely agree. For me, what makes a horror movie successful is tension. There are too many jump-scares out there right now, without the filmmaker taking time to build suspense. I loved The Blair Witch Project. And The Last Exorcism worked for me. Have you seen Lovely Molly and/or Lake Mungo?
Micah wrote: "Matthew wrote: "When the novel exploded as a form in the 18th century, it was literally defined by its newness..."Well, I'd contend that the novel (in form if not in name) is much older than that..."
We're back to Tristram Shandy though - postmodern-esque ideas 250 years early aren't postmodern. Before the concept of the modern novel existed as defined in the 2nd half of the 18th century, the novel could not exist - only works that happen to mirror the form in some ways.
History is written by the winners, and the novel is the winning literary form of the last few centuries. It's therefore natural that people look to works that were around before this and consider them prescient. They weren't prescient at all, they were just lucky. Calling them novels is like calling ruba'i 'early tweets'.
Michael wrote: "Garry-I completely agree. For me, what makes a horror movie successful is tension. There are too many jump-scares out there right now, without the filmmaker taking time to build suspense. I loved T..."I haven't seen those... thanks for the suggestions! I will look them up (and give myself a good scare hopefully)!
I'm not a huge fan of horror but the Japanese film 'Ring' (remade in English as the 'The Ring') scared the living daylights out of me. The Birds did too - oddly, the second time I saw it far more than the first.Actually, that's another slightly odd one. The short story of The Birds has, to me, a very SF feel, far more so than horror. I suppose it has that 'what if?' about it.
Mod
Anyway only film that can be classified as horror that has freaked me out is The Exorcist. I'm pretty sure the rigorous catholic upbringing and the convent boarding school I was sent to had more to do with it than the film though.
Drag me to Hell managed to inspire some of the worst bouts of existential angst I'd had in a long time. Must thank the film makers for that. But actual fear? No not really.
I know what you mean about The Birds short story, though Matt. I found quite a few of DuMaurier's books to have a slightly speculative feel, including Rebecca ( which is not an f****** love story! IMO) ;)
Sorry bit of a tangent.
'I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool!'Dead romantic
Matthew wrote: "We're back to Tristram Shandy though - postmodern-esque ideas 250 years early aren't postmodern..."[Pedantic Hat]
No, actually we're not. We're back to the argument that nothing was a novel before the word novel started to be used. Which is kind of like saying a ground beef patty grilled and served on a bun wasn't a hamburger if it was served before the term hamburger was invented (street vendors in classical Rome served those, BTW).
But the definition of a novel is: NOUN, fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism
That's pretty cut and dry.
Whereas postmodernism isn't since it's not a form, but a concept: NOUN: A late-20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism that represents a departure from modernism and has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with any notion of “art.”
Anything pre-modern can't be postmodern even if it has similar form. Whereas any fictitious prose narrative of book length is still a novel even if it predates the common use of that word.
[/Pedantic Hat]
I have absolutely no clue why I felt compelled to write all that (other than I'm hungry and tend to get pedantic when I'm not fed). ];S
Was it the thought of Hamburgers? ;-)I disagree on the definitions, by the way - that's presumably one dictionary's attenpt to define the form with no thought to the historical context. However, I think we've set out all the arguments and hi-jacked the thread quite enough, so propose we agree to differ!
Don't worry about the thread hijack, it was an interesting aside, but you seem to have come to a conclusion now (all be it two separate ones!)I haven't read 'the Birds' short story as I can remember, will have to look it up.
I remember being a bit freaked out by The Ring, but utterly underwhelmed by The Exorcist, possibly because it had been built up so much by being banned in the UK that when it was finally made available in 1999 (the first time I saw it), the hype had outstretched the quite dated production values! Coincidentally, this was the same year the Blair Witch project was released...
Anyway, how did we get to horror? As a branch of science fiction (or vice-versa) - it was because of Aliens wasn't it?
I think that the 'tool-kit' of horror (suspense, gore, tension) is easily translated and used by other genres, rather than the two crossing over as such.
One last question that's bugging me... I have this memory of reading a Jules Verne short story about alchemy that was claimed to be one of the first sci-fi stories... but I might be suffering from false memories! Any ideas? Or have I got the author wrong?
Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors...
Books mentioned in this topic
Something to Tell You (other topics)Something to Tell You (other topics)
Daedalus and the Deep (other topics)
Aliens: Earth Hive (other topics)
Dimension of Miracles (other topics)
More...
Does sci-fi have connotations of epic space opera? Is 'speculative' designed to soften the expectations to a broader audience?
This is interesting research for me as I have a speculative fiction collection available, but often have to label it as sci-fi (due to genre listings) - which I don't mind, as I love both - but would be great to hear what people think about this question!
And... discuss! (hopefully)
Thanks
Garry