zlacker

>>apolli+(OP)
She looks down her nose at "science fiction" and claims that her work is "speculative fiction" instead. It is a pretentious, pedantic distinction and, as a lifelong scifi fan, it makes me deeply ambivalent to anything she produces. Even if it is good science fiction.

>>klunge+314
I can't get behind "looking down" at scifi, but the distinction between scifi and speculative fiction isn't necessarily pedantic. Speculative fiction creates a world sufficiently different from our own that we need to situate to it, which makes it similar to science fiction. But in terms of technology, everything matches what we have right now.

As long as you don't disparage a particular genre, it's an entertaining and thought provoking distinction, especially when you get right out on the line. For instance, the episode of Black Mirror "Nosedive" gets right out on that line. There isn't much technology that doesn't already exist, they've just gone a little farther with it in terms of electric cars. Then you could go in the other direction - all fiction is speculative to some extent, so when does it cross the line? I'd say it happens when you need to situate yourself to the rules of a very different world, in a broad sense, but very hard to say...

The Handmaid's Tale feels like science fiction to me, probably because it's in a vague future date. But I'm having trouble thinking of anything technology oriented that would have to exist and doesn't already.