ALT.SF4M

  Wanted: Good SF reference book

   • m*******e@a****.***u.edu
     20/07/1996 00:00:000 UTC

     The Doubleday Sf book club is offering an SF encyclopedia by John Clute
     which

     is supposedly reduced from $75 to $25 (the copy in Barnes & Noble said
     $39.95

     on the dust jacket). This has a number of pictures and short blurbs on

     various SF topics, but doesn't exectly look like a scholarly reference.
     I was

     annoyed by the miniscule entry on Babylon 5 (which I consider by far the
     best

     show on TV). The book implies that B5 was ripped off from DS9. If anyone
     did

     ripping off, it was Paramount, who listened to a pitch for B5 and then
     turned

     it down saying they already had a similar show of their own in the
     works. They

     then rushed to get DS9 out as soon as they could.

     Anyway, I'd like a good reference work on science fiction, preferably
     organized

     like an encyclopedia so I could, say, look up Sam Moskowitz and read a
     good, if

     short, biography on the man, or look up some film and find a good
     description

     of it along with the release date and any other interesting information
     on it.

     If you know of any good SF reference works, please let me know.

     Thanks very much.

     --- Brian

     Dead monkeys on drugs could write better code than Microsoft.

       • s******r@s**.***.*****n.edu
         22/07/1996 00:00:000 UTC

         In article <4sq0q1$***@g*****.***u.edu>, m*******e@a****.***u.edu
         (Brian McGuinness) writes:

         > If you know of any good SF reference works, please let me know.

         There's nothing else in the category of Clute and Nicholls. Don't be

         put off by a few botched entries; they are inevitable in a work of
         this

         scope. It is as close to comprehensive as you can find.

         That being said, it is by design as much a critical work as a
         reference

         work. By that I mean it is opinionated and has its own agenda. All
         the

         facts are there, though. I haven't looked up one obscure thing that
         I

         didn't find an entry for.

         As far as prices go, the $75 was for the hardcover, and the $40 is
         for

         the paperback. I don't know whether the $25 is worth it for the book

         club edition. Some book club editions are of poor quality, and with
         a

         tome of this size, I'd be wary. If it's the same quality paper and

         binding of any BCE I own, I'd expect it to break in half on first
         perusal.

         -- K.

         -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

         Kevin L. Sterner | U. Penn. High Energy Physics | Smash the welfare
         state!

         -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            • b******c@u*******r.ca
              25/07/1996 00:00:000 UTC

              In article <4t05cg$***@n******.*****n.edu>,

              Kevin Sterner wrote:

              >In article <4sq0q1$***@g*****.***u.edu>,
              m*******e@a****.***u.edu (Brian McGuinness) writes:

                >> If you know of any good SF reference works, please let me
              know.

              >There's nothing else in the category of Clute and Nicholls.
              Don't be

              >put off by a few botched entries; they are inevitable in a
              work of this

              >scope. It is as close to comprehensive as you can find.

              I missed the start of this thread because of server problems-
              didn't

              receive anything for about 3 days- but did anybody mention the
              Billion

              and Trillion Year Spree books by Aldiss? There's fairly good
              analysis of

              the authors and their themes. I don't know how good it would
              serve for

              literary reference purposes but for general info it would be
              great.

              Trillion is the more recent.

       • y*************e@m******.**o.uk
         25/07/1996 00:00:000 UTC

         In article <4sq0q1$***@g*****.***u.edu>, m*******e@a****.***u.edu
         (Brian

         McGuinness) wrote:

         > The Doubleday Sf book club is offering an SF encyclopedia by John
         Clute ...

         > If you know of any good SF reference works, please let me know.

         > Thanks very much.

         > --- Brian

         You are on a hiding to nothing if you dont like the name Clute. The
         book

         you are looking for is probably Clutes previous Encyclopedia of
         Science

         Fiction as by John Clute and Peter Nichols, published by Orbit in
         the UK

         (It is avaialable in the USA, but I don���t know who from). It is
         fairly

         informative, but it suffers from Clutes usual errors of thinking he
         knows

         everything, when in fact he just knows more than anyone else. There
         is

         also a reasonable volume from St James Press called 20th Century
         Science

         Fiction Writers, but it only deals with books ��� at least the Clute
         books

         deal with all aspects of SF.

         The Clute/Nichols Encyclopedia is also available on CD-ROM from
         Grolier,

         so if you like computers you could try that. Personally, I would
         rather

         have a book.

         Good Luck with your search. There are other older Encyclopedias,
         long out

         of print, but needless to say even if you could find them they would
         be

         horribly out of date: there is just so much new SF nowadays.

         Paul