Tag: Speculative Fiction

Maddaddam by Margret Atwood

Posted December 23, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction / 2 Comments

Maddaddam by Margret AtwoodTitle: Maddaddam (Goodreads)
Author: Margaret Atwood
Series: Maddaddam #3
Published: Bloomsbury, 2013
Pages: 416
Genres: Speculative Fiction
My Copy: ARC from Publisher

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

A man-made plague has swept across the earth and wiped out most of humanity. Few survived, along with the Crakers (a new bio-engineered species). There may not be much hope for humans to survive but the Crakers have a chance. Toby and Zeb tell the story of just what happens next, in the conclusion of this great epic post-apocalyptic trilogy.

This is the final instalment in the Maddaddam story; a trilogy that I binge read over the past few months. Just a quick recap; Oryx and Crake tell the story of these two as well as Snowman, the destruction of the world and the creation of the Crakers. At the same time The Year of the Flood tells the story of Toby and The Gardeners (a religious cult). Those two books run in parallel and lead us to Maddaddam, where the two stories meet.

I’m not too sure how I feel about the final novel in this trilogy. On one hand this is a rather upbeat finale that ties everything up into a nice little bow and on the other, I much prefer bleak and I feel this novel was unnecessary. Not to say it was bad but both Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood worked well as standalone novels, they both interconnect but you could probably read one or the other without confusion. When it comes to Maddaddam you really do need to have read the first two books, there is a “previously on the Maddaddam trilogy” moment at the start of the book but this is a novel to fill in the gaps. I don’t mind gaps, I like leaving questions unanswered but I can understand why Margret Atwood would choose to wrap things up.

Maddaddam is a novel about renewal Oryx and Crake focuses on the destructive nature of science, and The Year of the Flood looked at religious fanaticism; I’m a little surprised this book was more positive. Atwood writes really thought provoking novels and Maddaddam is no different, though this does feel more optimistic. This novel focuses heavily on science and politics, two of Margret Atwood’s favourite topics and she does leave the reader with plenty to think about.

One thing I found in this novel that surprised me was the dark humour; I don’t remember Oryx and Crake or The Year of the Flood being this funny. The dark post-apocalyptic themes were evident within this book, I was just thrown by the outlook and ending; it felt almost joyous. In the end it did wrap up the series in a nice way, despite my feelings toward this novel, it was a great read and the whole series is worth checking out.


The Martian by Andy Weir

Posted December 9, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction / 4 Comments

The Martian by Andy WeirTitle: The Martian (Goodreads)
Author: Andy Weir
Published: Crown, February 11th 2014
Pages: 384
Genres: Speculative Fiction
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

In a freak dust storm NASA aborted a mission on Mars. leaving behind one astronaut; the crew evacuated thinking him dead. Now Mark Watney is stuck, with the damage done to the equipment he might not have time to starve to death. He was the first person to walk on Mars and he is going to be the first to die there too.

The age of the self-published novel is upon us and every now and then we hear people talking about a book getting a publishing deal and going on to be hugely successful. Fifty Shades of Grey being the first of these, then came Wool and I believe The Martian will be the next sensation book. I can’t help but think of this book as Moon (the movie) set on Mars. You have this man verses nature, fight to survive type thriller but help is about 225 million kilometres away (that’s the average; it does depend on the time of year).

You have a few parts to this novel; firstly you have a log book telling the majority of Mark Watney’s story. Then you read about NASA’s rush attempts to find a way to save him and finally you get a first-hand account of Watney when the epistolary style won’t work. The tension that builds in this book is key to why this novel works so well; this is edge of your seat thriller writing at its best.

What I loved the most about this novel was the humour, while this was a tense book, the little one liners thrown in really worked for me. I just liked how Mark Watney’s mind worked; it was a case of too much time on his hands. At one point in the novel he uses maritime law to work out how he can become a space pirate. Then the novel gets scientific, I’m not good at science but I did wonder how accurate this part of the book was. I’m not going to try mixing Oxygen and two parts Hydrogen to make water, it just sounds too dangerous.

For me, I loved every minute of reading The Martian, which is a little surprising; I can’t remember when the last time I truly enjoyed a Science Fiction novel. There are some that I got a lot out of but nothing this enjoyable. This book isn’t going to be released till February next year and unfortunately the self-published ebook is no longer available. Having said that, pre-order this one; I think there will be a lot of hype behind this, but don’t let that stop you from ordering first.


Player One by Douglas Coupland

Posted October 6, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction / 0 Comments

Player One by Douglas CouplandTitle: Player One (Goodreads)
Author: Douglas Coupland
Published: Windmill Books, 2011
Pages: 246
Genres: Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Player One tells the story of five people trapped in an international airport during a global disaster. Over the next five hours, these lives are changed forever;  a single mother waiting for an online date, an airport cocktail lounge bartender, a pastor on the run, a cool blonde bombshell incapable of love and a mysterious person known as Player One. The novel follows the interactions of these five people as they react to the chaos as we slowly find out just what happened.

Douglas Coupland masterfully explores human interactions in the midst of a disaster as well as looking at things like human identity, religion and sociology in this sharp and to-the-point novel. Coupland is a bestselling author that writes some very easy to read post modernism and is often dealing with topics such as religion, Web 2.0 technology, human sexuality, and pop culture. This is my first Douglas Coupland novel but it isn’t the last of them. He reminds me a little of a modern Kurt Vonnegut with his philosophical approach to science fiction. Think a modern Cat’s Cradle where the disaster dealing with modern issues rather than those of the atomic age.

I’m finding this novel really hard to review because honestly, I don’t want to give anything away. This is the kind of novel you enjoy more if you don’t know too much about it. I don’t want to give the impression that this is a heavily philosophical novel, Coupland writes in a way that is accessible for readers of all ages. Almost like a YA novel but for a more serious reader you have all these ideas worth exploring; this is the stuff I have the most fun with. I just love a complex novel that seems basic on the surface but if you are willing, you can spend hours trying to analyse.

I don’t think this reads like a post-apocalyptic fiction, but it does feel like this is the right genre. The entire novel takes place in a bar over five hours and feels more like a postmodernist novel rather than anything else. I’m not going to spend time trying to work out what genres to fit this into but rather just wrap up this review.

I know this is a little short but I really don’t want to give too much away. Just tell people to try it, maybe not the type of novel for females but if you like Vonnegut or like the sound of this novel then maybe this is for you. I’ll be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on this book. I’m sorry this is a weird review but better to say too little than too much. It’s only 200 pages long so won’t take too much effort to try.


The Machine by James Smythe

Posted September 11, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction / 6 Comments

The Machine by James SmytheTitle: The Machine (Goodreads)
Author: James Smythe
Published: Blue Door, 2013
Pages: 328
Genres: Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Hardcover

Buy: AmazonBook Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Beth lives in a remote village by the sea, a desolate place where she can rebuild her life following the return of her husband after the war. Vic is haunted by his memories and turns to a machine to take his nightmares away, but it takes everything away; now Beth is determined to rebuild him.

Dubbed as Frankenstein for the 21st century, The Machine is a wonderfully dark and complex novel that really deserves more attention. I normally get annoyed when novels are compared to Frankenstein; how can any novel truly compare? The Machine was a different story; I wasn’t expecting it to compare to Frankenstein, I was more interested with the dark and complex nature of this book. The novel reminds me more of the British TV show Black Mirror; there are two episodes in particular, the episode where all memories are recorded for instant playback (1×3) and the one where a woman loses her husband and turns to a service that continues his online life (2×1). The show is considered “a hybrid of The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected which taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world” and is designed to be thought provoking. In fact The Machine feels right at home with the style of that show.

Imagine if you can record all your memories and then wipe the ones that cause pain?  Would removing some memories change a person completely? What if that machine wipes every memory and leaves the person catatonic? What are the moral implications of playing with someone’s memories? How should the government regulate scientific advances like this? If you could, would you try to rebuild a loved one? There are just so many questions to answer and The Machine does a great job of creating more. Don’t expect answers, this book is all about giving you questions.

I love a novel that gets you questioning life and philosophy. James Smythe masterfully does what so many try to do, it’s so refreshing to read something like this but it makes me sad that this book isn’t getting more attention. I feel the need to read every James Smythe book I can get my hands on in the desire to experience this feeling again. Science Fiction is a genre that really can explore humanity and morality and Smythe reminds the readers that it’s possible. In the 60s and 70s it felt like all Sci-Fi novels had a message and we have exchanged that for entertainment. Not that there is anything wrong with entertaining the reader but you can do that while exploring philosophical ideas.

There is so much I want to say about this book and the majority of it is positive but I won’t, I think everyone should read this book and experience it for themselves. The plot is compelling and James Smythe writes like a master of his craft. The Machine has already secured a place in my “best books of 2013” list and I want to read more of his books, just to have this experience again. Go out now and get your copy of The Machine.


Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Posted June 26, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction, Thriller / 0 Comments

Snow Crash by Neal StephensonTitle: Snow Crash (Goodreads)
Author: Neal Stephenson
Published: Bantam Press, 1992
Pages: 440
Genres: Speculative Fiction, Thriller
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: AmazonBook Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

In a time in the not so distance future where the federal government of the United States has yielded most of its power to private organizations and entrepreneurs, franchising individual sovereignty reigns supreme. Merchant armies complete national defence, highway companies compete for drivers and the mafia own the pizza delivery game. Hiro Protagonist, “Last of the freelance hackers and greatest swordfighter in the world”, finds himself without his pizza delivery job when a young skateboard “Kourier” named Y.T. tries to hitch a ride on his vehicle. Leading them on a grand scale adventure trying to uncover just what exactly Snow Crash is.

Like all of Neal Stephenson books, you can expect this one to cover subjects like  history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, and philosophy, all while keeping to his cyberpunk thriller style. He says this book was named after the early mac software failure mode:

“When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television set—a ‘snow crash’”

His goal, was to take the reader on a “full tour of Sumerian culture, a fully instantiated anarcho-capitalist society, and a virtual meta-society patronized by financial, social, and intellectual elites.” Snow Crash is a pseudo-narcotic or is it something far worse; Hiro and Y.T (short for Yours Truly) slowly discover that it is in fact a computer virus capable of infecting the brains of careless hackers in the Metaverse (the successor to the internet) and a mind altering virus in reality.

One of the things I liked most about Snow Crash was the fact that Neal Stephenson showed us how to write a kick ass teenage girl protagonist. Young Adult novels like to use a strong teenaged girl as a main character but few of them really know how to make her great; most are just Katniss clones. While Y.T’s narrative wasn’t as focused as that of Hiro, it was more of a pleasure to read, she seemed to accomplish the most in the entire book and she did it her own way without compromising her character. Sure, she did manage to get into some trouble and make some bad choices but she’s human, I expect them to struggle and fall and recover from their mistakes.

While this was a fun and exciting novel there are some things that I just didn’t like; firstly each ethical group portrayed the stereotypical extreme.  The mafia, the rednecks from New South Africa, the Pentecostals, Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong and so on, all felt very much like the cliché versions of these cultures and Stephenson played on the stereotypes a little too heavily. I know they were only minor plot arcs but it still felt like it was overdone. The most interesting people in the book are the ones living outside their cultural and ethnic groups; Hiro, Y.T and Raven.

Then there is my biggest problem with the book, which is a similar problem I had with Reamde and that is I feel like Neal Stephenson turns some chapters into a Wikipedia articles just to give us all the interesting information he has on a subject he is exploring. In this book it is every time the librarian talks, there is heaps and heaps of interesting, and sometimes irrelevant, information and the way Stephenson tried to stops it become and wall of text is the awkward attempt to make it sound like a conversation. Hiro keeps interrupting the librarian’s information with very simplified reiteration, agreements and metaphors, I found it incredible annoying.

Overall this was a fast paced cyber thriller with some weird and unusual tangents and twists. Stephenson has some interesting ideas about the future of the world but for some reason I never feel a strong connection to his books. I think I prefer William Gibson’s style and take on the future cyber world but can’t fault Stephenson for what he does. Not that I’ve read many books from this author and there are plenty more I want to read, maybe I just feel like he over simplifies and draws his novels out a little too much.


The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Posted May 30, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Gothic, Horror / 0 Comments

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis StevensonTitle: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Goodreads)
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Published: Signet, 1886
Pages: 92
Genres: Classic, Gothic, Horror
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic gothic horror novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is probably known to many people; it’s been adapted many times and is often a symbol of the horror genre in pop culture. We all know the story; mild-mannered Dr Jekyll by day but at night, thanks to a potion, Mr Hyde is unleashed. But do we really know this tale; the tale of good and evil, or maybe the unleashing his secret inner persona, or maybe this is a story about dissociative identity disorder?

This is a reread for me so like I did in The Great Gatsby; I’m going to quote my old review (which is relatively short) but expand with what I know now. First we need some context; Robert Louis Stevenson had already had some success as a Victorian adventure writer before he came up with the idea of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He had already written Treasure Island and his collection of short stories New Arabian Nights; in fact it is believe that he came up with the idea while working on his revisions for the short story Markheim (which, in my opinion, is his best piece). So already you get a sense that he knows what he is doing and if you’ve read Markheim you can see the similarities clearly. It was the late into the Nineteenth Century where there were extraordinary technological advances being made and people had a growing pessimism towards a possible decline in arts and religion.

The Promethean personality is something we’ve seen in books like Dracula by Bram Stoker, but this novella has more in common with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Both involve scientists that defy the laws of nature and God with major consequences. Also, they play on the concept of good and evil and the dangers of advancing sciences but they also have been written in a way that to this day people debate the meaning of the novel.

Some say this is a novella that looks at that great Victorian idea of inner conflict with humanity; that good and evil exist in us all and it is an internal struggle between the two. While others suggest that maybe Stevenson was interested in exploring mental health, especially when it comes to split personalities or what should be correctly called a dissociative identity disorder? When I first read this book I got a sense of both, saying “[That] it’s a vivid portrayal of a split personality, split in the sense that within the same person there is both an apparently good and an evil personality each being quite distinct from the other.”  As an interesting side note Vladimir Nabokov has famously argued that the “good versus evil” view within this novella is misleading, as Dr Jekyll himself is not, by Victorian standards, a morally good person.

“The novella’s impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.” While this is true, the tale has left a bigger impact on pop culture than just one phrase and classic horror movies. Within comic books both The Hulk and Batman’s rival Two-Face have clear influences from this novella; in fact you might argue that all superheroes are influenced as well, all living a double life.  Even the framework has been used in other fables, gothic, horror and speculative fiction.

“Robert Louis Stevenson is an amazing writer and this book is well worth the read, I’ve always enjoyed a story that tries to explore two sides of a situation.” Not only does this highlight how much I’ve improved in my reviewing but it serves as a reminder of my interest in plots that explore both points of view. Frankenstein still remains my ‘go to book’ for this even though rereading Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has rekindled an interest in Robert Louis Stevenson’s thoughts on the whole “good versus evil” view. I much prefer Markheim and think I might go read it again now.


Wool by Hugh Howey

Posted March 15, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction / 12 Comments

Wool by Hugh HoweyTitle: Wool (Goodreads)
Author: Hugh Howey
Published: Random House, 2012
Pages: 537
Genres: Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: AmazonBook Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo. Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies. To live, you must follow the rules. But some don’t. These are the dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope and dream, and who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple and deadly. They are allowed outside. Jules is one of these people. She may well be the last

Hugh Howey’s independently released smash hit series Wool has been picked up and released as a novel. While Wool is more of an omnibus of the first five novellas, Simon and Schuster (in the US) and Random house here have been promoting it as a novel. While each novella does shift perspective, the questions at the end is what drives you to keep reading and that is what makes this a great novel. You find yourself with more questions than answers and you just need to dive into the next part in the hopes that you will have some of those questions answered, but knowing you’ll end up with more questions.

Hugh Howey has masterfully created this world built on lies and as you follow the characters you can’t help but wonder what the real truth is. Living in these huge 200 plus level underground silos, cut off from what may or may not exist outside, some lies need to be told to keep the peace. But what lie can really lead to peace? Aren’t all lies destructive by nature?

Wool is an exciting take on the dystopian/post apocalyptic genre and while there is something very familiar with this book, it also feels very fresh. The world is governed by fear and if you don’t obey you get sent outside to clean. Only problem with that is you’ll never survive the toxic air out there and this control leads to a totalitarian reign in this dystopian world. The antagonists of the silo turn out to be the IT department, because knowledge is power and this power struggle between this department and the rest of the silo is done really well.

The characters are just fantastic in this book, from Sheriff Holston who was likable but all of sudden volunteered to do the cleaning at the start of the book, to his replacement Jules, the strong minded female lead, and all the other characters on the way. I’m reminded of Game of Thrones in the way that you can never really get too attached because you never know who while be cleaning next. Even the minor characters have a sense of complexity that is often missed with other authors. This eye for detail and passion for a fast paced adventure with brilliantly flawed characters is what really makes Hugh Howey so successful.

I’m impressed with the huge success of this self published author and having read this, I now know why it works. The blend of questions with the fast pace and wonderful characters means this author is on track to become a masterful story teller. Wool really does live up to the hype and I hope you get a chance to read it soon. I’m torn between buying the kindle versions of the prequel, Shift, or to wait for the novel. I know if I buy each novella individually it will be torture waiting for my questions to be answered but I really want to go back to that world and see what Hugh Howey does with it.


The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Posted February 9, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction / 4 Comments

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Cassandra Rose ClarkeTitle: The Mad Scientist’s Daughter (Goodreads)
Author: Cassandra Rose Clarke
Published: Angry Robot, 2013
Pages: 400
Genres: Speculative Fiction
My Copy: ARC from Netgalley

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Cat’s life was not ever going to be normal; the daughter of a mad scientist can never be easy. When her father created an android to be her tutor, she was a little afraid to begin with but soon Finn became her best friend. While Finn is programmed to assist his owners, this billion dollar construction becomes a whole lot more to Cat. The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is a coming of age novel with a science fiction twist.

While this is a coming of age type novel, it’s both Cat and Finn that have to try and find their place in the world. Cat, as she grows up into an intelligent woman, and Finn, as the government look into granting rights to the increasing android population. As a young girl who grows up with only one person to talk to, it comes as no surprise to see that she forms a strong emotional bond with Finn, but I can’t help but wonder if the author took it a little too far. I can fully accept this young adult to fall in love with the android that has always been there when she needs it the most, but the sex, seemed a little weird and really threw me out of the story. I’m not going to debate the idea of sex and androids because I’m sure there a many thoughts on this concept; just for this novel it really threw me off.

There really are some interesting concepts coming through in this novel. Firstly the interesting science fiction twist on the coming of age novel; not only does Cat grow and struggle though life, I really thought the idea of Finn finding himself in an evolving world was explored in a decent way. Then the concept of loving someone that can never love you back. It’s clear that Cat is in denial at times, hoping that Finn will return her feelings but always getting hurt by the fact that he doesn’t; this is a long struggle she deals with and created a great emotional impact for the protagonist and the reader. Finally the increased population with robotics; this was never explored as well as someone like Isaac Asimov did but it was still interesting to read Cassandra Rose Clarke on this subject.

At times this dragged on a long time, but I found myself being fully absorbed in the novel only to be yanked out with the sex scenes. I’m not sure if they really needed to be in the book; I think they could have portrayed the love Cat has for Finn without it. It was these sudden jerks that destroyed this book for me.  I tend to think the author was adding a bit of controversy to get the book talked about but for me it didn’t make me want to ponder the concept, it just made me want to resort to skim reading.


We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Posted June 10, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction / 0 Comments

We by Yevgeny ZamyatinTitle: We (Goodreads)
Author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
Translator: Clarence Brown
Published: Penguin, 1921
Pages: 226
Genres: Classic, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: AmazonBook Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote his seminal dystopian novel We (1921) based on his personal experiences during the two Russian revolutions (1905 and 1917) and the first World War. The book ended influencing dystopian authors like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. This book not only influenced the dystopian genre but could also be the influence towards the post-apocalyptic genre as this was set in a world where all was wiped out but “0.2% of the earth’s population”.  The book is set in ‘One State’ which has been organised to be a workers’ paradise; everything has to work like clockwork and everything is based on logic and mathematics. This society is heavily surveillanced, has martial law and is heavily censored; a totalitarian world.

The protagonist, D-503, is an engineer who begins writing a journal (much like in 1984) to document Integral, the spaceship being built to invade other planets. D-503 is under constant surveillance by the Bureau of Guardians (the secret police) as is everyone else. He is assigned a lover O-90, but ends up having an uncontrollable attraction to I-330. This leads to nightmares and furthermore into what could be considered a mental illness. I-330 reveals to D-503 a world that was previously unknown to him. Will he hang onto hope or will reason get the better of him?

We was an impressive novel; not only with the themes that it explores but also with the technology and the simple fact that it was years and years ahead of its time. While some say We was released in 1920 and others 1921, there is no denying that, because of the subject matter, this was an impressive piece of literature. If it wasn’t for this book we may never of been able to enjoy Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) or even Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano (1952). By today’s standards this book would be overlooked but something innovative and so complex to be written so long ago makes this worth a read.


The Need to Make Speculative Fiction a Genre

Posted May 25, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature, Speculative Fiction / 0 Comments

twenty thousandRecently in the book club, I started a conversation on the difference between speculative fiction and science fiction, which maybe was met with a little bit of confusion but I think that was mainly due to people thinking of speculative fiction as an umbrella team that covers science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction and more genres. This is correct but I want to talk about Speculative fiction as a genre for now.

While many people thing of speculative fiction as encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, I would like to see a shift away from this definition and more towards the genre that Margret Atwood has been fighting for.  I think she said it best when she defined the differences between the two as:

“What I mean by “science fiction” is those books that descend from HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds, which treats of an invasion by tentacled Martians shot to Earth in metal canisters – things that could not possibly happen – whereas, for me, “speculative fiction” means plots that descend from Jules Verne’s books about submarines and balloon travel and such – things that really could happen but just hadn’t completely happened when the authors wrote the books.” 

I think there is a real need to separating the two as some books that are classed as science fiction don’t really fit into the general conception of sci-fi. I’m talking about books like George Orwell’s 1984, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and even Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale.

This brings me to my point, and an interesting problem. While it would be nice to separate the two genres so that people don’t get the wrong impression of a book being classed as Science Fiction; how do we choose which goes where. Take Jules Verne as an example. At the time of his writing, these books would definitely be considered as science fiction, but with the progression of time, most of the technology in Verne’s novels have been realised; making the books speculative fiction. So how do we class these books, do we make them science fiction until the technology catches up or do we just class books as speculative fiction if there is a possibility that these events could actually happen? I would love to hear people’s thoughts on this.