Written by Stephen Thompson | 26 January 2007

So it would seem that some people in the world are a tad confused either by what speculative fiction is or what constitutes industry.

The central core of The Specusphere is speculative fiction, ie, any narrative that uses scientific, uncanny or fantastical elements as essential building blocks of that narrative. Usually stories of this nature fall into the sub-genres of science fiction, horror or fantasy. However, other genres use these elements in constructing narratives, for example, television forensic programs using scientific methods (and a lot of fantasy), literary fiction using magic realism and thrillers using alternative views of history.

Speculative fiction is a mega-genre, or a meta-genre, it spans many forms of fiction. I like to call the mega-genre specufiction, to distinguish it from the sub-genres lumped together under the speculative fiction banner and to show that it incorporates many other genres. However, the word isn't in common usage so we have to stick to the more mundane (and, to my mind, ugly) phrase, speculative fiction, in our banner. For the purposes of this article, though, whenever I use the term speculative fiction I really mean specufiction; I really mean something beyond scifi, fantasy and horror, and which includes the unreal elements of all genres.

So, The Specusphere is about speculative fiction, and the industries and industry related to it.

The most obvious industry associated with speculative fiction is writing. Whether it is in short story, novella, novel or script form it is the primary industry acknowledged by this website. As such, any activity that supports the writer in producing content can be considered as a speculative fiction industry. Hence, editors, publishers, printers, typesetters, proofreaders, artists, etc, – anybody involved in book, story or script production – is involved in a speculative fiction industry.

But there is one big proviso in all this: they must be supporting speculative fiction.

Editors, for example, are not by virtue of their profession a speculative fiction industry; only those who edit speculative fiction can be given that honour. Similarly, anybody involved in the production of a film, play, dance, concert, etc, which uses speculative fiction themes, is involved in speculative fiction industry.

By extension, it can be seen that anybody who produces a body of knowledge that inspires speculative fiction writing is engaged in speculative fiction industry, usually as a by-product of their real industry. From a scientist who unlocks a mystery of the universe to a humble hippie making bows and arrows in the Byron Bay hinterland, from the fashions of medieval Europe to the psychic researcher, from conspiracy theories to high level politics, from the Nebula Award winners to the writers' group newbie, all are part of the industry that creates knowledge potentially to be used in speculative fiction.

So, in a sense, the writer mentioned above is right: the magazine is about everything and anything, but only insofar as it relates to speculative fiction.

I am by no means saying that nuclear physics or CSIRO is solely a speculative fiction industry, or that academia is there only for the speculative fiction writer, or that the primary reason for cinemas to exist is to aid speculative fiction. No, all these industries have other agendas; their industry is not consciously directed. However, some part of their industry feeds speculative fiction, and it is this part of the larger entity that we call speculative fiction industry.

I once had a man send an article that espoused a speculative view on the interpretation of Tristan and Isolde. I rejected it as it had nothing to do with speculative fiction (as far as I could see). The point is, speculation per se is not a part of this website. I wouldn't, for instance, publish articles about the next election unless it was, perhaps, about each party's policy on speculative fiction, or something similar.

The Specusphere is for fans, users and creators of speculative fiction. The industry surrounding the genre is the work that brings into being the memes of speculative fiction. It is all the supporting characters and companies that make speculative fiction possible as a reading, writing, viewing and participating experience.