SF, Sci-fi, or Science Fiction?

[M. D. Benoit]

Because, especially now, a lot of alternate realities books are mixed genres --even fantasy and science fiction together-- I've started talking about SF or alternate reality to encompass the whole shebang.

But when I say SF, speculative fiction (which is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it?) or alternate reality to people, they look at me with a blank look. I say sci-fi, their eyes clear up.

Should I keep it up to educate people, or am I wrong in wanting just one label to describe the field of speculation, be it scientific, weird, or fantastic?

[Celina Summers]

I like the term speculative fiction personally. There's so much cross-genre writing going on right now (Jeff Vandermeer comes to mind) that ths old tags don't real work any more.