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.
Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em upvideo game developed and published by Taito for arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, with the game being released by Midway Manufacturing overseas. Space Invaders was the first fixed shooter and the first video game with endless gameplay (meaning there was no final level or endscreen) and set the template for the genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser cannon to earn as many points as possible.
Dorothy(left) douses the Wicked Witch of the West with water, melting her, in this illustration from the first edition of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The appearance of the witch in the 1939 film adaptation of the novel has become an archetype for human wickedness. This film is the source of the oft-quoted phrase, "I'll get you, my pretty ... and your little dog too!" The unique Broadway musical, Wicked, The Untold Story Of the Witches of Oz, tells of The Wicked Witch of the West, the Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, The Scarecrow, and Glinda's shared history. (POTD)
The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous annual convention as the central focus of the event. They were first given in 1975, at the first World Fantasy Convention, and have been awarded annually since. Over the years that the award has been given, the categories presented have changed; currently World Fantasy Awards are given in five written categories, one category for artists, and four special categories for individuals to honor their general work in the field of fantasy.
The awards have been described by book critics such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and one of the three most prestigious speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards (which cover both fantasy and science fiction). World Fantasy Award nominees and winners are decided by attendees of the convention and a panel of judges, typically made up of fantasy authors. Winners receive a small trophy; through the 2015 awards it was a bust of H. P. Lovecraft designed by cartoonistGahan Wilson. The bust was retired following that year amid complaints about Lovecraft's history of racism; a new statuette designed by Vincent Villafranca depicting a tree in front of a full moon was released in 2017. The 2024 awards were presented at the 50th convention in Niagara Falls, New York on October 20, 2024, and the 2025 awards will be presented at the 51st convention in Brighton, United Kingdom on November 2, 2024. (Full article...)
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