What Makes Speculative Fiction So Addictive?

You wake up, make tea, check your phone, and discover the rules of your life were written by a corporation you have never heard of. Or perhaps everyone else has agreed that the sky is green and you are the inconvenient weirdo insisting it was blue yesterday. That delicious itch under the skin is where speculative fiction lives. It takes the world we recognise, nudges one crucial piece out of place, then watches the consequences get very strange indeed.

For readers who enjoy the mind-bending unease of The Matrix, Inception or The Truman Show, the appeal is obvious. Reality is not a stable floor. It is a trapdoor, and someone is reaching for the handle.