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RE: My Favorite Writing Topic? Speculative Fiction
Speculative fiction is a very interesting genre, as is speculative science fiction, if that's a "thing."
I'm thinking of stories set in a world where (for example) Tesla — rather than Edison — gained dominance with electricity. Or a world in which Hitler was assassinated in 1937. Or the 1947 Roswell incident had been publicly disseminated rather than hidden.
Somehow, the best — or most authentic — writing always seems to be that which we write for ourselves when we truly are "in the zone."
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Science fiction and fantasy are a big part of speculative fiction, as well as subgenres and mixtures. I guess it's defined as any narrative fiction—so the telling of unfolding fictional events—with some kind of supernatural or futuristic elements. So, the examples you cite would be a part of it. There's some kind of social context, a message or moral perhaps, or happenings that will cause a person to pause and think about what they're reading and how it might relate to them.
In my case, I've been setting things either in the modern day, or within the known world, but perhaps 50 years ago, and then introducing those fantasy or science fiction elements, rather than say, creating a totally different world, like in science fiction and fantasy that isn't as identifiable and where the things that happen are normal within their environs.
I admire the creativity; I am purely a reader when it comes to fiction; a writer when it comes to non-fiction. But the speculative aspects are definitely a great mindgame/thoughtgame.
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