Speculative fiction is a term that encompasses a wide number of different genres that tend to explore worlds that transcend our current reality. The idea of speculative fiction is to let imagination flourish, show how the world would look under different circumstances, involve the idea of magic or the supernatural and more. There are many popular genres that fall under the speculative fiction umbrella and many of these genres happen to be my favorites as well. I was first really introduced to the concept of speculative fiction when I took a world building workshop a few years back and I feel that not a lot of people are really aware of what this term means, so that’s why today, I’ll be talking about what speculative fiction is and why it matters to know it.
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What Does Speculative Fiction Cover?
Speculative fiction is, like I said earlier, a bit of a broad term that covers many different genres and subgenres that tend to follow patterns of telling stories about different worlds, alternate realities, and more.
Science fiction is one genre that falls under speculative fiction (often shortened to spec fiction as well). Sci-fi is a genre that explores a lot of concepts like the idea of the future, technological advancements, military technology, space exploration, aliens, time travel and more. Sci-fi tends to tell a lot of stories about things like the consequences of the interactions between humanity and the technological world.
Fantasy is another very popular genre and tends to explore magically-fueled worlds with creatures, cultures, quests, legends and more. A lot of inspiration for fantasy comes from things like folklore and mythology and it tends to follow similar styles in its own storytelling. If you want to learn a bit more about the difference between fantasy and sci-fi, then check out this post.
Horror is another genre that sometimes falls under this umbrella term as horror often explores things like the paranormal and supernatural, such as ghosts and spirits. Horror often attempts to invoke terror, fear, and other negative emotions in readers. If you want to learn about how to write an awesome horror movie, check out this post!
Alternate history is another genre that falls under speculative fiction because it explores the idea of “what if” in relation to historical events. Oftentimes, we see this in retellings of prominent historical events such as World War II (like the video game series Wolfenstein).
Dystopian novels also fall under speculative fiction. These sorts of novels tend to take the idea of a society that is undergoing some sort of catastrophe and shows it in a twisted way, oftentimes in an extreme way, as a sort of warning to readers. Dystopian societies often come up from the ashes of wars, civil unrest, disease, environmental disasters, military coups and more. We see this true in books like 1984 by George Orwell.
Some speculative fiction books combine multiple genres together to create an amalgamation of different ideas, which is what I did in my series, The Fallen Age Saga, where I combined fantasy with science fiction to create my story’s universe.
Where did Speculative Fiction Come From?
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact time in human history where the idea truly got its start. For the most part, the idea of coming up with stories has been around since the first civilizations where folktales and mythology would be passed down from generation to generation. Many of these stories served as entertainment, religious beliefs, or ways to explain the world in general.
The modern term of speculative fiction is attributed to Robert A. Heinlein who wrote the term “speculative fiction” in The Saturday Evening Post on February 8, 1947. He used the term as a synonym for science fiction and later explained in a different piece that he did not initially want the term to encompass fantasy. The idea of speculative fiction has possibly been around for longer, and either way, it now encompasses many different genres that speculate on the world around us.
Speculative fiction has only grown in size and popularity since the term was coined. And even before the term was coined, speculative fiction works were growing in extreme popularity. There was an era of time when science fiction saw the works of Isaac Asimov growing. There was also George Orwell’s 1984 and later in the 1960s we had works like Dune.
Fantasy literature was expanding dramatically as well, with the popularity of stories written by Tolkien and C.S. Lewis influenced many writers to begin forming their own fantasy stories. Fantasy has especially gotten an explosive growth in recent times with the introduction of romantasy (romance fantasy) and stories that have wide audience appeal beyond just the base of fantasy readers.
The Themes of Speculative Fiction
Speculative fiction works often like to explore many different themes present in the real world through their fictional settings and worlds. For instance, many speculative fiction works dive into the impact of technology on humanity and beyond. One of the biggest themes of my book, Malware (Book 1 of my series) is that the world has become over reliant on technology and that all it takes is for one person to understand how to exploit the system and potentially shut down global operations (as we saw in the recent CrowdStrike crash across the globe).
Another big thing that a lot of speculative fiction works tackle is the idea of commentary on societal issues. V for Vendetta, for instance, talks about the idea of fascism and extremism on a political level impacting the lives of ordinary people. 1984 talks about the idea of fascism as well, but takes it to a whole other extreme level where even your thoughts are monitored. The Hunger Games talks about the ideas of classism and the division of societal power. A lot of books under this umbrella term cover heavy-hitting topics and portrays them in extreme or plausible ways to deliver a message to readers.
Speculative fiction also talks about the world beyond and the realms that exist within our current world with things like the paranormal and the supernatural. That’s why we see a lot of stories bring up concepts of things like demons, ghosts, vampires, and more.
Beyond Literature…
Speculative fiction is not something that simply exists within the covers of books anymore. In our modern time, this form of fiction exists in pretty much anything we have.
For instance, video games. I’m a big fan of video games and I play a lot of video games all the time. Video games are prime examples of integrating speculative fiction into their storylines. Most video games cover things like fantasy or the supernatural as well as sci-fi. There’s games like Dark Souls, Starfield, Wolfenstein, etc… that all cover some sort of speculative fiction idea within their respective stories.
Additionally, movies and TV have been exploring speculative fiction concepts for ages by now. You see shows like Game of Thrones, which is based on the very popular book series by George R. R. Martin or movies like The Martian which is based on a popular sci-fi book. There are so many examples of speculative fiction in cinema as well, and many movie series tend to have massive amounts of fans behind them.
Conclusion
Speculative fiction is a powerful grouping of genres that covers anything from sci-fi to fantasy and even horror. Speculative fiction is great because it places a high emphasis on pushing our imagination to its limits, exploring different ideas, cultures, themes and more.
Before you head on out, be sure to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and be sure to sign up for my newsletter so that you get updates on my latest WIPs, book releases, posts and more!