I had not heard the term “speculative fiction” until the last two years when Derek decided he was going to be incredibly educated in an incredibly niche field. For me, all that stuff had been “fantasy.” It was the sort of hushed about genre. I come from a family of readers but when I was growing up, mystery was the king of the household. As a wee little lad, I had the romping adventures of the Hardy Boys to spark my imagination. My sister, naturally, had Nancy Drew. My mom read pretty much any detective fiction that was ever printed. There was also a series of books we read which followed two kids as they solved mysterious across Canada. I want to say they were Eric Wilson’s Tom and Liz Austen series?

However, this was not to last. When I was in Grade 4 I got very sick with appendicitis. While bemoaning my imminent death, I was bed bound for a few weeks at home. A child is apt to get bored during that time and no doubt I complained incessantly about there being nothing to do. My mom eventually returned with the entire Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. These were on video since it was far easier to put them on and let me drift off and on in sleep as I recovered.

I found these films absolutely fascinating. Perhaps it was the drugs but the bewitching idea of being transported through an old wardrobe (did not understand what they were for the longest time) into a magical land was incredibly appealing. I learned quite a lot of useless information from those books. Information that did not translate well into my own world. Primary among them is that Turkish Delight, despite its appearance, is not tasty at all.

George Biggin’s Ascent in Lunardi Balloon by Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1785).

Regardless, the fantasy world was revealed and I dove in enthusiastically. I was far more prolific in my reading when I was younger and it, no doubt, prompted my desire to write. On the heels of Narnia came the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as well as my nostalgic Thieves’ World anthology. Even into high school I was chewing through the fantasy genres and I had a couple of friends who suggested their own favourite series for me to read.

It took about five years but I eventually discovered that I don’t particularly like fantasy anymore. It’s primary focus is on escapism and epic battles between ultimate forces. It was all… incredibly samey. Each series was just like the last, sometimes blatantly so. The genre certainly became very rigid in its portrayal and as it grew more and more entrenched, I found myself drifting further and further away.

Now, I hadn’t entirely ignored science fiction. Both genres had been smashed rather inelegantly together in every library and book store I visited. I picked up a few, read a couple more that were recommended. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy certainly had the greatest lasting appeal but even the Left Hand of Darkness is something I look back on with ever growing respect. My first novel is a fantasy and though I feel it deviates from the norm, I’m not entirely convinced it does it to any remarkable manner. When I started my short stories, I was hesitant to start into the science fiction genre. I didn’t feel I was properly equipped to write within it. I haven’t read a lot of the seminal works nor am I particularly familiar with its most prominent tropes.

Back of Female by Jacques-Fabien Gautier-Dagoty (1746).

However, I find I am enjoying it more and more as I write. There seems a far greater avenue to write on topics which are relevant to the present without needing tireless research into fields which I am uneducated. There is also a kind of perverse pleasure in thinking about current scientific theory and inquiry and imagining the future implications of them. There’s something very… sharp about science fiction. And my short stories certainly take a greater and greater focus on the present now than they did when I was writing purely for pleasure.

Not that entertainment is a terrible thing. There are just less rules to follow in science fiction and that freedom is both liberating and daunting. You don’t have key great works to point at and say definitively “this is what science fiction is.” Aasimov, Le Guin, Herbert and Gibson are about as varied as the topics they cover. Even now, I’m puzzling out the ramifications of modern American capitalism and the possibilities of what corporatehood would be when taken to its greatest extremes. My last short story looked at the existential question of what constitutes individuality and the relationship between mind and body.

There’s a fleeting sensation of being the Oracle of Delphi when tossing your mind against the future and the direction society could take in its endless march. Most of the time, it’s incoherent and drug induced rambling but every now and then I feel I stumble upon a genuinely though provoking idea. For all our learning and understanding, there’s so much we don’t know and even less than we can predict. I will never have the impact of Gibson or create a world that hits as many realities as his but I don’t need to either. All my speculative worlds essentially examine questions we struggle with now or will struggle with in the future. How will body modification affect as both on an individual and societal level? What will it mean to be human when we are able to replace large portions of our body with plastic and steel? These are certainly not the first time the questions been raised but that we have no right answer means that there is room for novel results.

Future earth worlds are also infinitely easier to create than fantasy worlds as well which is also a large plus.