I used to read a lot of non-fiction, especially business books. In fact I’m still on a few publishers lists for receiving advanced copies of business books. But I find myself reading more science fiction, and I’m really enjoying the genre some call progressive or speculative science fiction. This genre also seems to cover cyberpunk, and dystopian genres (I could be wrong here on the genus and families of fiction types, but I think this one of those things that isn’t generally agreed on). 

Non-fiction can tell you what happened, or at best take a guess at what is happening, but fiction tells you what could be. Even when non-fiction tries to explain what’s happening and what is yet to come, they’re still really just telling you about the past. And conversely, even when science fiction is trying to write about the past (like with steampunk) they’re still telling you about the future. 

Non-fiction is about how we reacted to something. Science fiction is about how we would react to something. And even though there are a lot of exceptions and I still read my share of great non-fiction, for me, understanding how people react to change (which is the core of what sci-fi is about) is far more valuable that someone trying to explain to me what already happened.