The greatest collection of human knowledge ever gathered with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone, the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, mainly edited by David Langford and John Clute, is now living in a beta edition online at http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com.
A mere 3.2 million words are present in the beta, leaving the whole enterprise a million words short of its goal. The next million words will roll out by Friday if they can dig Lester Dent up from the grave or 2014 otherwise.
It contains:
A metric crapload, in Campbellian math. Use and peruse and enthuse.
I gave it The Lafferty Text. Fine article. Hotspots on his various titles go to where they can be purchased–if they can be. Including Amazon UK, where I would not have thought to check.
This will be a major timesink for me. l I already own both the print editions (and the Encyclopedia of Fantasy), and I’ll end up looking for the additions to the entries.
Thanks for putting the link up - I don’t have the print copy so this will be a great resource.
I like the author’s (Clute?) entry on Wolfe, along the lines of not the most original, probably the most important. He’s like the Velvet Underground of SF - only 100 people read The fifth head of Cerberus when it came out, and every one of them went on to become science fiction writers.
Saying that, the Wolfe entry reads a bit like a dog’s breakfast. Is it a wiki affair?
Wow, not so much an Encyclopedia.
“encyclopedia articles focus on factual information to cover the thing or concept for which the article name stands.”
yet everything i read on it so far was filled with opinions. Especially on the quality of story or situation…not something I want to read in an encyclopedia
For some of us, intelligent opinion is just the thing we like to read. If the SF encyclopedia were strictly factual, it would consist of birth dates, death dates & lists of works published. Oh, and awards.