Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
I think you're wrong here. Indeed, one of the items in the first definition of speculative is conjecture, which is certainly part of creating a fantasy universe.
Fantasy is an exploration of how the universe might be if it obeyed different rules (or no rules). That falls firmly under speculation for me.
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I see. I hadn't considered it from that perspective.
Speculation generally means reasoning from the facts you do have to a conclusion that
could be true but for which you have insufficient evidence. The speculation is bound by rationality: it must be hypothetically, theoretically possible. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is imaginative, but no one supposes (via reason) such a world is possible...
... unless you're speaking of a different universe with different laws. It's one hell of a proviso, but with that condition, fantasy can be called speculative fiction.
I'd encourage the traditional categories of science fiction and fantasy fiction. Lumping them together into speculative fiction doesn't seem useful to me, at first blush.