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The Fantastic "What if?" Genre
Speculative Fiction, or "SpecFic", is hard to define. It's "What If?" - the fantastic in a fictional setting. Sound vague? Read on.
"Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making -- and more."
Speculative Literature Foundation
Speculative Literature Foundation
What Literary Genres & Subgenres Are Considered Speculative Fiction?
© J. Golden
This list may be used with permission and attribution (© JaNell Golden). Please link back to this lens, my lensmaster page, or JaZilla.net.
Additions may be made as long as it's clear what's mine and what's yours.
Additions may be made as long as it's clear what's mine and what's yours.
- Alternate History
Alternate History poses questions about different outcomes to historic events, and how that would alter our known world. - Apocalypse/Holocaust
Apocalypse/Holocaust is set in a reality where The World As We Know It ends or has ended. - Coming of Age (as a species)
Coming of Age stories redefine what it means to be human when we make an evolutionary leap as a species. - Contemporary Fantasy
Contemporary Fantasy has a realistic modern world setting with elements of supernatural forces such as magic or mythological deities occurring through access to another world, realm, or plane. - Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is actually one of the more likely SF genres, with virtual reality & technology inundating every level of society, most of which still have a low quality of life. - Dystopian
Dystopian literature is set in dysfunctional utopias. - Fairy Tales
Fairy Tales tell a lesson story via human-like beings (fairies, elves), animals with human traits (goblins, trolls), and enchantments and charms, set in a rustic setting. - Fantasy
Fantasy is set in medieval or low technology environments with strong dependence on magic and other supernatural elements. - First Contact
First Contact stories are about how we react as a species when confronted with other intelligent life for the first time. - Horror/Dark Fantasy
Horror/Dark Fantasy develops from supernatural evil or human evil/mental disorder encroaching on ordinary people's lives. - Magical Realism
Magical Realism is set in a realistic modern world with the addition of magical elements. - Science Fiction
Science Fiction explores potential (far) future developments in technology, space exploration, and human evolution. - Slipstream
Slipstream is set in our world ~ almost. There are slight, uneasy making distortions in our reality or else the protagonist has fallen out of the consensual reality but is not insane in any way. - Steampunk
Steampunk gives the Victorian era modern technology.
More Opinions About The Definition of Speculative Fiction
- What Is Speculative Fiction?
- What Is Speculative Fiction? by D. D. Shade
Lost Book Archives - Visions of Paradise: Defining speculative fiction
- Visions of Paradise Blog, Sunday, August 22, 2004
- What is Speculative Fiction? - Articles That Never Die (GreenTentacles)
- As a part of our on-going mission, with the help of others in the speculative fiction industry, we try to define the genre, in this living article...
Speculative Fiction In The News
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byStudies In Speculative Fiction
Scholars Take On SpecFic
Plagues, Apocalypses and Bug-Eyed Monsters: How Speculative Fiction Shows Us Our Nightmares
Amazon Price: $35.00 (as of 11/27/2009) 
The Fantastic Vampire: Studies in the Children of the Night Selected Essays from the Eighteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
Amazon Price: $95.00 (as of 11/27/2009)
An Inquiry into the Purposes of Speculative Fiction: Fantasy and Truth (Studies in Comparative Literature (Lewiston, N.Y.), V. 58.)
Amazon Price: (as of 11/27/2009)
Slaves of the Death Spiders and Other Essays on Fantastic Literature (I.O. Evans Studies in the Philosophy & Criticism of Literature, No. 38.)
Amazon Price: $19.95 (as of 11/27/2009)
War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Amazon Price: $71.95 (as of 11/27/2009)
Speculative Fiction Related Lenses At Squidoo
- The Speculative Literature Foundation
- The Speculative Literature Foundation's mission is "to promote literary quality in speculative fiction, by encouraging promising new writers, assisting established writers, facilitating the work of quality magazines and small presses in the genre, and developing a greater public appreciatio
- Free Speculative Fiction Online
- This site provides links to free online Speculative Fiction. SpecFic is a broad and wonderous term that encompasses many forms of speculative genre writing. Care has been taken to choose only sites that do not infringe on the authors' copyright.
- The Neil Gaiman Reader: Critical Essays
- Essays & literary criticisms of Neil Gaiman's work, edited by Darrell Schweitzer of Weird Tales. Neil Gaiman calls The Neil Gaiman Reader "Essays on things I've written, by a dozen different very smart people."
- The Prisoner
- I AM NOT A NUMBER, I AM A FREE MAN!
SpecFic Guestbook
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- superbookdepot superbookdepot Oct 26, 2009 @ 5:16 am
- Nice and very beautifully laid out lens. I would really appreciate it if you visit my Best Literature & Fiction Books lens and put your views there. Hope you will take out some time to rate it too.
http://www.squidoo.com/literature-and-fiction-best-sellings-books
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- cosmicxeelee cosmicxeelee Dec 9, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
- Love it-trying to get my SF discussion group to get on board with it-I think it's a great way to attract new readers, by showing the breadth of SF & I've asked them to help with titles that "fit" those sub-headings if that's okay-I want to bring in new readers and show them some "homes" they'd like.
by JaZilla
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