The Illustrated encyclopedia of SF is an entirely different book.
Researchers are advised to check there in every case after reading any article: Most major writers have an errata.)Īnyway, this is a bible, and should be treated as such. My edition contains a 16-pages errata appendix, and some of the errors contained there are glaring. (The book also contains quite a few errors, I’m told. Some major writers of nowadays (Egan, Sawyer, Stephenson, even Straczynski) are absent, or casually dismissed on the basis of a single book. Published in 1992, it’s beginning to (!) show its age. The biggest flaw is inevitable: Obsolescence. It is immensely useful: Even a few months after I’ve received it, I’m still using it regularly to check facts, dates or just for general entertainment. More than a list of SF authors and bibliographies, it includes critical commentary, movie reviews, coverage of most medias, general themes essays and a lot of non-US material. The 1,300 pages Encyclopedia of Science-Fiction belongs on every serious fan’s reference bookshelf. Well, I did have to gloat somewhere, didn’t I? Fear nothing Here’s the reviews: Both volumes for a bit more that half the cover price of the 1,300 pages encyclopedia.
The morning after, it STILL seemed like a good idea. Until a certain day when an SFBC notice arrived in the mail, saying something like “Oh, you haven’t bought anything from us in six months. No, really.)īut time dragged on, the effect of Pepsi wore off, the summer job kicked in and the idea faded. They even asked to do an encore performance outside the store. Nevertheless! I vowed to myself: Once upon a time, this book WILL BE MINE! (I’m rotten at verb tense, but the store security people were really impressed by my delivery. But the price tag of 50$ had a certain effect on my spending urge. I spent many minutes in the bookstores, trying more or less spectacularly to keep my drool from dropping on the copies I was shamelessly studying. Same thing when the Illustrated encyclopedia came out. In this case, patience reward the deserving… or so I like to think.Įxplanations: When the SFBC came out with their own edition of the quasi-legendary Encyclopedia of SF at better than half the price of the 90$ volume, I was ecstatic: Having borrowed my university’s copy of the encyclopedia more time than I like to think about, I salivated over the prospect of owning my very own copy of the bible… er… encyclopedia. Dorling Kindersley, 1995, 312 pages, C$50.00 hc, ISBN 0-7894-0185-1Ĭhance helps those who help themselves, they say.
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