Doug recently posted a pointer to a posting from back in March, over at Orson Scott Card's Hatrack River site, titled "The Best Speculative Fiction on the Internet."
I was distressed to see that there are a bunch of stories on that list that I haven't read, from a variety of sources. So much to read, so little time. Maybe I'll take a look at some of them after the Hugo deadline.
Maybe it’s just me — I am, after all, the guy who’s claimed that Dune is a fantasy novel, rather than science fiction — but I can’t see how “Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby” can be construed as speculative fiction. It’s a swell story, one of my favorites of Barthelme’s, but SF? How?
Oh, didn’t we tell you? Surrealism and absurdism have been declared to be speculative fiction, at least for the duration.
Also, all fiction that engages in “fourth wall” comments to the reader is now speculative fiction, as is all fiction with unusual and/or non-linear narrative structure.
In fact, the only fiction that does not now fall under the rubric of “speculative fiction” is the fiction known as “that mainstream stuff,” which cannot be easily defined but we all know it when we see it.