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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

Rowling at the White House in 2010

Joanne Rowling (/ˈrlɪŋ/ ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She is the author of Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy novel series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series. The seven-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, the birth of her first child, divorce from her first husband, and relative poverty until the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). By 2008, Forbes had named her the world's highest-paid author. (Full article...)

Selected work

Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years and eighteen distinct human species, of which our own is the first. The book employs a narrative conceit that, under subtle inspiration, the novelist has unknowingly been dictated a channelled text from the last human species.

Stapledon's conception of history follows a repetitive cycle with many varied civilisations rising from and descending back into savagery over millions of years, as the later civilisations rise to far greater heights than the first. The book anticipates the science of genetic engineering, and is an early example of the fictional supermind; a consciousness composed of many telepathically linked individuals. (Full article...)

Selected quote


David Brin (b.1950), Interview, Locus (March 1997).[1]
More quotes from Wikiquote: science fiction, fantasy, alternate history

Selected picture

1884 Macbeth poster
1884 Macbeth poster
Credit: W.J. Morgan & Co. (lithography); Adam Cuerden (restoration)

A poster from an 1884 American production of William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth, a tale of regicide and its aftermath. Starting anti-clockwise from top-left, we see Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches, Macbeth just after the murder of King Duncan, Banquo's ghost, and Macbeth dueling with Macduff. Over the centuries, the play has attracted some of the greatest actors in the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The play has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comic books, and other media. Shakespeare borrowed the story from several tales in Holinshed's Chronicles, a popular history of the British Isles, although the story itself bears no relation to the actual history of Macbeth of Scotland. (POTD)

Did you know...

a blue monster without a head and with a big face on his chest. Two men holding swords seated on his two arms

Upcoming conventions

December:

January:

Dates can usually be found on the article page.


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

Selected article

Michael Myers is a character from the slasher film series Halloween. He first appears in 1978 in John Carpenter's Halloween as a young boy who murders his elder sister, Judith Myers. Fifteen years later, he returns home to Haddonfield, Illinois, to murder more teenagers. In the original Halloween, the adult Michael Myers, referred to as The Shape in the closing credits, was portrayed by Nick Castle for most of the film and substituted by Tony Moran in the final scene where Michael's face is revealed. The character was created by John Carpenter and has been featured in twelve films, as well as novels, video games, and comic books. The character is the primary antagonist in all the franchise's films with the exception of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which is a standalone film disconnected from the continuity of the other films. Since Castle and Moran put on the mask in the original film, six people have stepped into the same role. Castle, George P. Wilbur, Tyler Mane, and James Jude Courtney are the only actors to have portrayed Michael Myers more than once, with Mane and Courtney being the only actors to do so in consecutive films. Michael Myers is characterized as pure evil directly by the filmmakers who created and developed the character over nine films. He typically kills using a chef's knife. In the films, Michael wears a white Halloween mask, as well as coveralls, which he usually steals from a victim. The mask used in the first film was a Captain Kirk mask that originated from a cast of William Shatner's face made for the 1975 horror film The Devil's Rain. (Full article...)

On this day...

December 25:

Film releases

Television series

Births

  • 1916 - Allen Adler (d. 1964), an American science fiction author and screenwriter
  • 1924 - Rod Serling (d. 1975), an American screenwriter, television producer, and narrator best known his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone

Deaths

  • 2008 - Edd Cartier (b. 1914), an American pulp magazine illustrator
  • 2008 - Leo Frankowski (b. 1943), an American writer of science fiction novels


Possible futures

Possible events in the future as suggested by science fiction:

  • In 5000, the Filipino Army defeats the Alliance at the Battle of Reykjavik during the closing stages of World War V.
  • Around the year 18,000,000, a "half-plastic denizen" of the interior of a planet beyond Pluto exchanges his mind with the Great Race of Yith.

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Note: If no articles are shown below, please work on those found in the Archive. This list was generated from these rules. Questions and feedback are always welcome! The search is being run daily with the most recent ~14 days of results. Note: Some articles may not be relevant to this project.

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