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It has been around since humans began to speak. The earliest forms of speculative fiction were likely mythological tales told around the campfire. Speculative fiction deals with the "What if?" scenarios imagined by dreamers and thinkers worldwide. Journeys to other worlds through the vast reaches of distant space; magical quests to free worlds enslaved by terrible beings; malevolent supernatural powers seeking to increase their spheres of influence across multiple dimensions and times; all of these fall into the realm of speculative fiction.
Speculative fiction as a category ranges from ancient works to cutting edge, paradigm-changing, and neotraditional works of the 21st century. It can be recognized in works whose authors' intentions or the social contexts of the versions of stories they portrayed is now known. For example, Ancient Greekdramatists such as Euripides, whose play Medea (play) seemed to have offended Athenian audiences when he fictionally speculated that shamaness Medea killed her own children instead of their being killed by other Corinthians after her departure. The play Hippolytus, narratively introduced by Aphrodite, is suspected to have displeased contemporary audiences of the day because it portrayed Phaedra as too lusty.
Rodney Stephen Steiger (/ˈstaɪɡər/STY-gər; April 14, 1925 – July 9, 2002) was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Ranked as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars", he is closely associated with the art of method acting, embodying the characters he played, which at times led to clashes with directors and co-stars. He starred as Marlon Brando's mobster brother Charley in On the Waterfront (1954), the title character Sol Nazerman in The Pawnbroker (1964) which won him the Silver Bear for Best Actor, and as police chief Bill Gillespie opposite Sidney Poitier in the film In the Heat of the Night (1967) which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, the son of a vaudevillian. He had a difficult childhood, running away from home to escape an alcoholic mother at the age of 16. After serving in the South Pacific during World War II, he began his acting career with television roles in 1947, and went on to garner critical acclaim for his portrayal of the main character in the teleplay "Marty" (1953). He made his stage debut in 1946, in a production of Curse You, Jack Dalton! at the Civic Repertory Theatre of Newark, and subsequently appeared in productions such as An Enemy of the People (1950), Clifford Odets's Night Music (1951), Seagulls Over Sorrento (1952), and Rashomon (1959). (Full article...)
Selected work
"The Riddle of the Sphinx" is the third episode of the third series of the British dark comedyanthology television programme Inside No. 9. It first aired, on BBC Two, on 28 February 2017. The episode was written by the programme's creators, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and directed by Guillem Morales. "The Riddle of the Sphinx", which is set in Cambridge, stars Alexandra Roach as Nina, a young woman seeking answers to the Varsitycryptic crossword, Pemberton as Professor Nigel Squires, who pseudonymously sets the crossword using the name Sphinx, and Shearsmith as Dr Jacob Tyler, another Cambridge academic. The story begins with Nina surreptitiously entering Squires's rooms on a stormy night and being discovered; this leads to Squires teaching her how to decipher clues in cryptic crosswords.
The plot of "The Riddle of the Sphinx" revolves around the clues and answers to a particular crossword puzzle. The idea to focus an episode on crosswords came from Pemberton; he had long been a fan of cryptic crosswords, but particular inspiration came from Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword, a non-fiction book by Alan Connor. The crossword featured in "The Riddle of the Sphinx" was set by Pemberton, and was published in The Guardian on the day the episode aired, credited to "Sphinx". This crossword contains multiple ninas—hidden messages or words. Along with many of the crossword's answers, one nina is integral to the episode's plot. A second was introduced accidentally, and then incorporated into the episode. A third nina is an Inside No. 9in-joke. (Full article...)
Selected quote
“
Plausibility, as the necessary brake and control element, has been our most essential guide.
”
—Harold C. Deutsch (1904-1995), Introduction, What If? Strategic Alternatives of WWII (December 1997).
The October 1912 issue of All-Story, containing the first Tarzan story. The artist is Clinton Pettee.
The All-Story Magazine was a pulp magazine founded in 1905 and published by Frank Munsey. The editor was Robert H. Davis; Thomas Newell Metcalf also worked as a managing editor for the magazine. It was published monthly until March 1914, and then switched to a weekly schedule. Munsey merged it with TheCavalier, another of his pulp magazines, in May 1914, and the title changed to All-Story Cavalier Weekly for a year. In 1920 it was merged with Munsey's Argosy; the combined magazine was retitled Argosy All-Story Weekly.
Here are ideas for how you can help improve the coverage of speculative fiction topics on Wikipedia:
Join a WikiProject or task force:
Science fiction (task force): The 4400, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Firefly, Futurama, G.I. Joe, Heroes, Hitchhiker's Guide, Life on Mars, Lost, Pokémon, Red Dwarf, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Superman, Transformers, Twilight Zone.
Fantasy: Artemis Fowl, Discworld, Fabelhaven, Harry Potter, Highlander, His Dark Materials, Inheritance Cycle, Lemony Snicket, Middle-Earth, Narnia, Oz, Percy Jackson, Redwall, Roald Dahl, Shannara, A Song of Ice and Fire, Warriors.
Horror: Buffy, Twilight.
Other and related: Animation, Anime and manga, Balzac, Children's literature, Comics, Disney, Machinima, Games (Board and tabletop games, Warhammer 40K, RPGs (D&D), Video games (Square Enix)).
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Science fiction, fantasy, horror.
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Note: If no articles are shown below, please work on those found in the Archive.
This list was generated from these rules. Questions and feedback are always welcome! The search is being run daily with the most recent ~14 days of results. Note: Some articles may not be relevant to this project.
Rules | Match log | Results page (for watching) | Last updated: 2026-02-18 20:20 (UTC)
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Hypothetical Second American Civil War (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by CartoonDiablo (talk · contribs ·new pages (1)) started on 2026-02-16, score: 40
British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Michelangelo1992 (talk · contribs ·new pages (6)) started on 2026-02-15, score: 160
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