Speculative fiction really means that, the fiction of speculation, the fiction of asking 'what if?' It's a system of continuing inquiry. In a way all fiction starts off with 'what if,' but some 'what ifs' are more specific. One kind of novel starts off with 'What if I found out that my mother has an affair with a man that I thought was my uncle?' That's presupposing a different kind of novel from the one that starts off with 'What if I found out my boyfriend had just changed sex?' If you read the New York Times Book Review a lot, you soon come to the conclusion that our culture takes more seriously the first kind of fiction, which is a shame in some ways. By the second 'what if' you would actually end up asking much more penetrating questions. If you were half way good at writing fiction, you'd end up asking yourself and asking the reader actually much more complicated questions about what we expect from human relationships and what we expect from gender. - Angela Carter