Speculating to accumulate SF

There are two approaches to building a science fiction fantasy web site. One is loading up on content written by the site's producers (and their friends & family, of course).

The other is to load up with technologies which allows the fan's users to interact with the site and post their own content - interactive stories, bulletin boards, Grok-style news systems and the like.

Less you think it's an easy route following the latter tech-heavy route, let us disabuse you. You'll often find that so much shite is submitted into said bulletin boards and interactive story lines, that the budding webmaster has to spend more time on quality control than they would by simply writing all the content in the first place.

So this December, it's hats off to a site that definitely leans more towards the user-interaction end of the spectrum, Speculative Vision.

How are our chums at Speculative Vision interactive? Let us count the ways. There's a newswire that looks like it's kept up to date - nearly daily - by the editor going under the alias of The Master (a Dr Who fan, perhaps). Good stuff too, not your normal Grok Around The Clock.

Then there are their never-ending fantasy and sci-fi stories, with no chapters permitted that would actually end the story.

These include The Adventures of Jerod - the fantasy story of a young mage, and Planet's Call - a SF story originally submitted by Misjael N. Lebbink (a message is received from a mysterious source, what do you do then?) .

Of course, there's the ubiquitous forum for you to natter away with your fellow fans, as well as a Java gaming corner, for a little finger twitch R&R. Speculative Fiction also dabbles in the visual field with a good selection of fantasy and science fiction artwork in their online gallery.

Speculative Vision has also stretched their talent to the multimedia end of things, bringing you a couple of weekly interactive movies that they call 'webisodes'.

These animated adventures can be viewed in your browser (downloads, including a multimedia projector, are automated, so thankfully you don't need to visit external web sites to download and install plug-ins).

Each webisode weighs in at between five to ten minutes long, and the complete story arcs pan out over several weeks.

So, if viewing webisodes or contributing the next chapter of The Adventures of Jerod is your bag, then Speculative Vision is definitely the place to be online this Xmas.

www.speculativevision.com