Science Fiction Encyclopedia is Up and Running

This has already been widely reported, but for those of you who haven't seen it, the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (to which I have contributed entries on television) went live yesterday.  There are still teething problems, and the text, as some subjects of the encyclopedia's entries have been discovering to their own annoyance, is not yet complete, but it's still an enormous, fascinating resource well worth losing several hours to.

The Encyclopedia's launch comes in conjunction with Gollancz's SF Gateway, an ebook imprint that has begun to publish selections from Gollancz's massive catalogue of classic SF and fantasy.  There's a large selection already available, with more authors to come.

Comments

Raz Greenberg said…
Congratulations, Abigail. I have read several entries you wrote, and you did a great job as usual, even when I completely disagree :-)
Jonathan Clements also did fantastic work on the Japanese entries, and I certainly didn't expect any less.
Though you mention that some of the entries have not yet been uploaded, I'm curious if the current edition of the encylopedia - when it comes to the television section, at least - didn't go for the "less is more" approach. I understand the logic behind giving only a brief mention to every X-Files or Lost wannabe under the respective entry of the relevant show instead of devoting each a seprate entry, but I feel certain shows suffered from this approach - true, they followed the formula of another show, but were good shows in their own right (notable example: "The Dead Zone" has an entry for its film version, but not for its much superior TV show. I'll also admit having a soft spot for "Space: Above and Beyond", which predated many of the elements in both "Firefly" and the new "Battlestar Galactica").
Moreover, I was disappointed to see that the entry about Israel remained pretty much the same as in the previous edition - the last decade and a half saw no less than four different Israeli print magazines, a major organization devoted to the promotion of genre, and many large genre events, and none of this is even mentioned. I'm sad to say, but this is a real slap in the face.
Hi Raz,

One of the difficulties in my project to write TV entries for the SFE is that there are many shows I haven't watched. I'm filling in some of the gaps but there are others that I simply won't be able to. If you're interested in arguing for the importance of certain shows over others, please do.

The entry for Israel is not one that I've been involved in. It's certainly a good idea to take a look at it and see if it could stand revising. I'll put that on my to-do list.
David Langford said…
Yes, I regret that the country entries are almost all awaiting update -- one exception being, for arcane reasons, Romania. Abigail, we've burdened you with so much that I hesitate to ask more, but if you were able to bring the Israel entry up to speed that would be wonderful.
Anonymous said…
If I may make a suggestion here - I have a faint memory of Lavie Tidhar expressing an interest in writing the Israel entry, though it was almost a decade ago. I'm not sure what's his take on it today, and I am in no way volunteering him here, but I think approaching him might be a good idea.

-Raz Greenberg

Popular posts from this blog

The 2023 Hugo Awards: Somehow, It Got Worse

Recent Movie: The Batman

The 2023 Hugo Awards: Now With an Asterisk