speculative fiction

[spek-yuh-luh-tiv fik-shuhn, -leytiv]

noun

1. a broad category of fiction encompassing any story that contains imaginative, futuristic, or supernatural elements.

speculative fiction

noun

1. a broad literary genre encompassing any fiction with supernatural, fantastical, or futuristic elements

Word History and Origins

Origin of speculative fiction¹

Coined in 1947 by Robert A. Heinlein ( def. ) in his essay On the Writing of Speculative Fiction, in which he differentiates between science fiction stories that focus on fictional technologies and stories that focus on the societal impact of such technologies

Word History and Origins

Origin of speculative fiction¹

C20

Example Sentences

Speculative fiction has wondered what robots can do for us, or to us, since the dawn of the industrial age.

Read more on Salon

Celebrated writers Ivy Pochoda, Steph Cha and Jonathan Lethem imagine the future lives of Angelenos in these works of speculative fiction.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Tuchman: I remember when we first started the writers’ room in Season 1, this was 2016, and I thought, “Oh, we’re adapting this great, classic piece of literature,” which was known as speculative fiction about a dystopia, and we just wanted to tell the best version of that story as a TV show.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Many speculative fiction writers say some version of this whenever people point out disturbing similarities in their shows and movies to current events.

Read more on Salon

If that seems like a change from the feminist speculative fiction of her breakthrough, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Atwood has refused to be pigeonholed.

Read more on Los Angeles Times