Portal:Speculative fiction

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Speculative fiction is an umbrella phrase encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts.

It has been around since humans began to speak. The earliest forms of speculative fiction were likely mythological tales told around the campfire. Speculative fiction deals with the "What if?" scenarios imagined by dreamers and thinkers worldwide. Journeys to other worlds through the vast reaches of distant space; magical quests to free worlds enslaved by terrible beings; malevolent supernatural powers seeking to increase their spheres of influence across multiple dimensions and times; all of these fall into the realm of speculative fiction.

Speculative fiction as a category ranges from ancient works to cutting edge, paradigm-changing, and neotraditional works of the 21st century. It can be recognized in works whose authors' intentions or the social contexts of the versions of stories they portrayed is now known. For example, Ancient Greek dramatists such as Euripides, whose play Medea (play) seemed to have offended Athenian audiences when he fictionally speculated that shamaness Medea killed her own children instead of their being killed by other Corinthians after her departure. The play Hippolytus, narratively introduced by Aphrodite, is suspected to have displeased contemporary audiences of the day because it portrayed Phaedra as too lusty.

In historiography, what is now called speculative fiction has previously been termed "historical invention", "historical fiction," and other similar names. It is extensively noted in the literary criticism of the works of William Shakespeare when he co-locates Athenian Duke Theseus and Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, English fairy Puck, and Roman god Cupid all together in the fairyland of its Merovingian Germanic sovereign Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In mythography it has been termed "mythopoesis" or mythopoeia, "fictional speculation", the creative design and generation of lore, regarding such works as J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Such supernatural, alternate history, and sexuality themes continue in works produced within the modern speculative fiction genre.

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Selected profile

Andrade in 1928

Mário Raul de Morais Andrade (October 9, 1893 – February 25, 1945) was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetry, Paulicéia Desvairada (Hallucinated City), published in 1922. He has had considerable influence on modern Brazilian literature, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.

Andrade was a central figure in the avant-garde movement of São Paulo for twenty years. Trained as a musician and best known as a poet and novelist, Andrade was personally involved in virtually every discipline that was connected with São Paulo modernism. His photography and essays on a wide variety of subjects, from history to literature and music, were widely published. He was the driving force behind the Modern Art Week, the 1922 event that reshaped both literature and the visual arts in Brazil, and a member of the avant-garde "Group of Five". The ideas behind the Week were further explored in the preface to his poetry collection Pauliceia Desvairada, and in the poems themselves. (Full article...)

Selected work

Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed, co-written, and scored by John Carpenter. Starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis (in her film debut), with P. J. Soles and Nancy Loomis in supporting roles, the film is set mostly in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois. The plot centers on a mental patient, Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night when he was a child. Fifteen years later, having escaped and returned to his hometown, he stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode and her friends while under pursuit by his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis.

Filming took place in Southern California in May 1978. The film premiered in October and grossed $70 million, becoming one of the most profitable independent films of all time. Primarily praised for Carpenter's direction and score, many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher films inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974). It is considered one of the greatest and most influential horror films ever made. In 2006, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (Full article...)

Selected quote


Greg Bear (b.1951), "Introduction to 'Plague of Conscience'", The Collected Stories of Greg Bear (2002).
More quotes from Wikiquote: science fiction, fantasy, alternate history

Selected picture

William Wallace Denslow's illustration of the poem "The Queen of Hearts" from a 1901 issue of Mother Goose.
William Wallace Denslow's illustration of the poem "The Queen of Hearts" from a 1901 issue of Mother Goose.
Credit: Illustration: William Wallace Denslow. Restoration: Lise Broer

William Wallace Denslow's illustration of the poem "The Queen of Hearts" from a 1901 issue of Mother Goose. The poem was originally published in 1782 as part of a set of four playing card based poems, but proved to be far more popular than the others. By 1785 it had been set to music, and it forms the basis of the plot of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Chapter XI: "Who Stole the Tarts?" Although it was originally published in a magazine for adults, it is now best known as a nursery rhyme. (POTD)

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The Death of Procris

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See also these convention lists: anime, comic book, furry, gaming, multigenre, and science fiction.

Selected article

The Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction (formerly the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy) is an annual award presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) to the author of the best young adult or middle grade science fiction or fantasy book published in the United States in the preceding year. It is named to honor prolific science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton (1912–2005), and it was established by then SFWA president Catherine Asaro and the SFWA Young Adult Fiction committee and announced on February 20, 2005. Any published young adult or middle grade science fiction or fantasy novel is eligible for the prize, including graphic novels. There is no limit on word count. The award was originally not a Nebula Award, despite being presented along with them and following the same rules for nominations and voting, but in 2019 SFWA announced that the award was considered a Nebula category. Andre Norton Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of SFWA, though the authors of the nominees do not need to be members. Works are nominated each year by members in a period around December 15 through January 31, and the six works that receive the most nominations then form the final ballot, with additional nominees possible in the case of ties. Soon after, members are given a month to vote on the ballot, and the final results are presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony in May. Authors are not permitted to nominate their own works, and ties in the final vote are broken, if possible, by the number of nominations the works received. Beginning with the 2009 awards, the rules were changed to the current format. Prior to then, the eligibility period for nominations was defined as one year after the publication date of the work, which allowed works to be nominated in the calendar year after their publication and then be awarded in the calendar year after that. Works were added to a preliminary list for the year if they had ten or more nominations, which were then voted on to create a final ballot, to which the SFWA organizing panel was also allowed to add an additional work. (Full article...)

On this day...

April 17:

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Anniversaries and events

Possible futures

Possible events in the future as suggested by science fiction:

  • The artificial intelligence Durandal arrives in the Lh'owon system, 97 light years from the Milky Way's center, in 2811.


  • On April 27 of 2,774,020, Murcheson's Eye explodes into a supernova and becomes a black hole.

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History: Films · Golden Age · New Wave · Scientific romance
Related genres: Fantasy (Science fantasy· Mystery · Horror · Slipstream · Speculative (Weird) · Superhero
Themes: Artificial intelligence · Extraterrestrials (First contact· Floating city · Hyperspace · Lost World · Planets · Politics (Libertarian · Utopia/Dystopia · World government) · Religion (Christian · ideas) · Resizing · Sex (Feminist · gender · homosexuality · reproduction· Simulated realities/Virtual worlds · Slipstream · Space warfare (weapons· Stock characters · Superpowers · Timeline (Alternate future · Future history · Parallel universes · Time travel)
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By country: Australia · Bangladesh · Canada · China · Croatia · Czech Republic · France · Japan · Norway · Poland · Romania · Russia/Soviet Union · Serbia · Spain

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