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About

garden gnome face

Hi there! We’re the garden gnomes.

No, we’re not some bad alt-rock band you’ve never heard of, but we’re all about gardens. Living in them. Playing in them. Pissing in them. You name it, we do it in gardens. Keep reading to learn more about us, but, please, no tickling under the chinses. te-hee!

What Is Speculative Fiction?

Speculative Fiction comes in many forms. Coined by Science Fiction author Robert Heinlein in the middle of the 20th century, the term has taken on a much broader definition than originally intended.

Some people consider speculative fiction and science fiction interchangeable terms. Not us garden gnomes. For us, speculative fiction is an umbrella term that includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the various offshoots of these genres. And to go a step further, we really like it when these genres blend into each other.

To add another kink to the garden hose, peculative fiction, at heart is fantastic in its storytelling elements. Almost any mainstream genre story could meld into speculative fiction if told in the right spirit. Therefore, speculative fiction isn’t so much a genre as it is an atmospheric condition to a genre element.

A List of Story Speculative Genres

The garden gnomes love all kinds of fiction. Speculative fiction genres, or genres that might contain a speculative fiction atmosphere, include (but don’t consider this exhaustive):

Some of the Gnomes’ Favorite Speculative Fiction Authors

Speculative fiction is much older than most fans today are willing to admit. Quite frankly, we like work that leans to the weirder side of the house, satirical even, but we also like dark horror. Some of our favorite authors go well back into time and include:

  • Jonathan Swift
  • Edgard Allan Poe
  • Franz Kafka
  • Kurt Vonnegut
  • Ursula K. LeGuin
  • Stephen King
  • C.S. Lewis
  • Neil Gaiman
  • Margaret Atwood

  • Mary Shelley
  • Lord Dunsany
  • J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Robert Heinlein
  • Ray Bradbury
  • Philip K. Dick
  • William Gibson
  • Michael Moorcock
  • J.K. Rowling

And there are more. Some new writers rising up in newfangled genres such as Bizarro and New Wave Fabulism have also caught our eye.

About the Publisher

allen taylor publisher smoking cigar

Allen Taylor is a published poet and fiction writer, as well as an award-winning journalist. He is the author of several poetry electronic chapbooks, a collection of poems titled “Rumsfeld’s Sandbox,” a weird fantasy novella titled “Limerents in the Bog,” and the nonfiction book “E-book Publishing: Create Your Own Brand of Digital Books.” He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and loves to play games with his grandchildren.