Quote:
Originally Posted by DuskyRose
So far, 'Speculative' just seems like a fancy word for 'Fiction' to me.
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Not really. Your John Grishams, Dan Browns, Michael Crichtons, Dean Koontzs (?) et. al. wouldn't qualify as Spec-Fic. Well, maybe Koontz would.
The Wiki quote you mentioned earlier seems right to me, i.e. Speculative Fiction constitutes the more 'fantastical' genres of fiction.
Fiction by itself is not a genre. It's... well, I don't know how to describe it, except that anything which isn't 'real' is fiction. Basically, all books can be classified as either Fiction or Non-fiction, which is rather vague. So when you say, "I read fiction," that doesn't tell me much, because I
assume you read fiction for leisure.
It's like saying, "I listen to music." Well, sure, but
what? Speculative fiction is slightly (
slightly) more specific. Much like saying, "I listen to Rock." Sure, it's still a vague term, since Rock has dozens of sub-genres (alternative, metal, soft, indie, grunge, gothic, etc.) and many of the sub-genres have
sub-sub-genres (heavy metal, thrash metal, alternative metal, nu-metal, rap-metal, etc.). But at least "Rock" gives me *some* inkling that you like a certain kind of music, as opposed to others (Rap, R&B, Jazz, etc.).
Like with any category, the descriptions are never perfect. But it helps to get the message across as it tells the listener *something* about what kind of books you read. Humans tend to like grouping things.