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( Speculative fiction)
Alternate history The term is used this way in academic and ideological criticism of these genres, as well as by some readers, writers, and editors of these genres. The term is often attributed to Robert A. Heinlein. In his first known use of the term, in his 1948 essay "On Writing of Speculative Fiction," Heinlein used it specifically as a synonym for "science fiction"; in a later piece, he explicitly stated that his use of the term did not include fantasy. Heinlein may have come up with the term himself, but there is one earlier citation a piece in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1889, in reference to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward 2000–1887. A variation on this term is "speculative literature." "Speculative fiction" is sometimes abbreviated "spec-fic", "specfic", "S-F", "SF", or "sf". The last three abbreviations are also used to refer to "science fiction", so they can lead to confusion. The use of "speculative fiction" in the sense of expressing dissatisfaction with science fiction was popularized in the 1960s and early 1970s by Judith Merril and other writers and editors, in connection with the New Wave movement. It fell into disuse around the mid 1970s. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database contains a broad list of different subtypes. In the 2000s, the term has come into wider use a convenient collective term for a set of genres. Academic journals which publish essays on speculative fiction include Femspec, Extrapolation, and Foundation.
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