Pirates and the Speculative Fiction Tree

Speculative fiction is a boring term for the big umbrella that covers all the“fantastical” genres of fiction. The three main branches of speculative fiction you hear about are science fiction, fantasy, and horror, thoughsome definitions addalternate history, post-apocalypse, and superhero to the list. I’d argue that those all fall pretty naturally as sub-genres under those main three.

Literature buffs will tell you speculative fiction is cool because of its ability to use these fantastical, o...