What Is Speculative Fiction?

If someone describes a book as "speculative fiction," do you know what they mean? Most readers don't — and honestly, neither do a lot of writers. The term shows up constantly in bookstores, author bios, and literary journals, yet it never quite gets a straight explanation.

Here's mine.

What is speculative fiction?

In practice, speculative fiction is an umbrella term. It covers not only science fiction and fantasy, but all the niche genres that overlap or intersect with them: horror, alternate history, dystopian, utopian, post-apocalyptic, superhero, magical realism, and any other story built around fantastical premise.

As authors increasingly mash up genres — science fantasy, LitRPG, etc. — and the borders between categories keep eroding, speculative fiction has become a catch-all term.

It tries to be inclusive. This visual lays out one way to think about it (based on the original by Annie Neugebauer):

Origins of the term "speculative fiction"

The first recorded use of "speculative fiction" dates to 1887, when it appeared in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine:

"Edward Bellamy, in 'Looking Backward,' and George Parsons Lathrop, in a short story, 'The New Poverty,' have followed the example of Anthony Trollope and Bulwer in speculative fiction put in the future tense."

Robert A. Heinlein usually gets credit for popularizing its modern usage when he began using "speculative fiction" as a synonym for the kind of science fiction he wrote:

"Speculative fiction (I prefer that term to science fiction) is also concerned with sociology, psychology, esoteric aspects of biology, impact of terrestrial culture on the other cultures we may encounter when we conquer space, etc., without end."

But he has one caveat:

"Speculative fiction is not fantasy fiction, as it rules out the use of anything as material which violates established scientific fact, laws of nature, call it what you will, i.e., it must be possible to the universe as we know it. Thus, Wind in the Willows is fantasy, but the much more incredible extravaganzas of Dr. Olaf Stapledon are speculative fiction — science fiction."

So Heinlein's speculative fiction provides a contrast—for him, speculative fiction was not an umbrella term, but a narrower category used to describe science fiction.

Heinlein is and always will be a man of his time. Despite his role in popularizing its usage, the broader, more inclusive meaning is widely in use today.

So how did the term evolve?

Largely through the New Wave movement of the 1960s. Those writers championed the term as a way to distinguish their work from the pulp sci-fi of their predecessors.

Anthologies like Judith Merrill's England Swings SF: Stories of Speculative Fiction (Doubleday, 1968) wholly embraced it, even as "science fiction" and "speculative fiction" continued to be used interchangeably through the '60s and '70s.

Later, Margaret Atwood took up the cause. Her 2011 essay collection In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination wrestles openly with the term's slipperiness:

"Some use speculative fiction as an umbrella covering science fiction and all its hyphenated forms — science-fiction fantasy and so forth — and others choose the reverse."

She sees all these genres as drawing from the same source:

"When it comes to genres, the borders are increasingly undefended, and things slip back and forth across them with insouciance. [...] Surely all draw from the same deep well: those imagined other worlds located somewhere apart from our everyday one: in another time, in another dimension, through a doorway into the spirit world, or on the other side of the threshold that divides the known from the unknown. Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Sword and Sorcery Fantasy, and Slipstream Fiction: all of them might be placed under the same large 'wonder tale' umbrella."

The debate among SF writers

The SF community has never fully settled on what speculative fiction means, and some writers reject the term entirely.

Cat Valente, for instance, has argued that her work — which she calls "fantastika" — doesn't fit comfortably under the speculative fiction umbrella even though it fits the loose definition perfectly well.

Jamie Todd Rubin has called speculative fiction a "pretentious" label, a way to avoid just saying "science fiction" or "fantasy." He has a point: the New Wave writers adopted it precisely to set themselves apart from the "pulp" SF of their predecessors.

From the other direction, Raymond Coulombe, then editor of Quantum Muse, offered a definition that goes beyond the tidy "fiction of what if?":

"As an editor at Quantum Muse, I also like to print speculative fiction that fits the 'what the fk!' category. Think of those stories that are more edgy, perhaps weird, and maybe more than a little disturbing. There may be overtones of science fiction, fantasy, or horror, but the story does not fit comfortably into any one of those categories."

Genres are boxes we built

I used to use speculative fiction to describe my own work, but I've moved on to more specific labels as my work—and marketing savvy—has evolved.

Most readers know what it means, but because it's an umbrella term it's not very specific, so it's not useful in marketing.

As a writer, I try not to worry too much about category labels. It's more useful to think about genre as a set of reader expectations.

Speculative fiction reading recommendations

If you're looking for great speculative fiction to read, these lists are a good place to start:

• Speculative fiction genre list on Goodreads — updated based on Goodreads activity
• Best Speculative Fiction list on Goodreads — curated
• Speculative Fiction by Authors of Color — highly recommended

If you want to go deeper into the SF community's ongoing argument about what speculative fiction is and isn't, Margaret Atwood's essay If it is realistic or plausible, then it is not science fiction on Gizmodo is worth reading.

And if you're looking for speculative fiction to read right now, I write it — space opera and sci-fi mystery novels, full of starfighter pilots and ancient aliens. Join the newsletter and I'll introduce you to my worlds and the characters who keep me up at night.