The Encyclopedia of Sci-fi Goes Live Online 82
arcite writes "After twenty years of hard work, the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction website has recently gone live. It's an online database containing thousands of entries for all things Sci-fi, and a great place to read all about your favourite authors, characters, themes, and everything else."
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Yawn, you do better???
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On second thought, you probably can...
I can put something like this together in a month from code w better nav aond colors prolly, assuming I can copy paste the content, which is fair since I'd be the developer, NOT the researcher on the project.
Still a very strong start, not a 20 year one though.
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I can put something like this together in a month from code w better nav aond colors prolly
Maybe, but you'd need to write it so people could actually read it. A bright six year old could have posed a more literate comment.
Holes and Holes (Score:2)
This doesn't really look like 20 years of effort. Lot's of holes.
I only found [sf-encyclopedia.com] two [sf-encyclopedia.com].
But on a more serious note, I looked up Stanislaw Lem expecting to find a footnote and was instead fairly impressed [sf-encyclopedia.com] with the depth, cross references and quality. Perhaps this caters to old school sci-fi? Mind filling us in on what's missing?
There's even a short but accurate entry for Kilgore Trout [sf-encyclopedia.com].
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They have a page for Lem, but not for each of his novels. For example,The Invincible is just a name on that site, but it has its own page [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia.
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Eh, I think the Kilgore Trout entry is rather exemplary (in a bad way). Here is their entire entry:
An sf-writer character in Kurt VONNEGUT Jr's God Bless You, Mr Rosewater (1965) and Breakfast of Champions (1973), first used as a pseudonym by L W CURREY and David G HARTWELL for a short bibliography, SF-I: A Selective Bibliography (1971 chap), and later (there was a row about this) by Philip José FARMER on the novel Venus on the Half-Shell (1975). [PN]
No mention of Slaughterhouse-Five, which is easily his most famous appearance, or the other half dozen or so Vonnegut books he was featured in. Worse still, their phrasing strongly implies that God Bless You and Breakfast of Champions were his only two appearances which is flat out inaccurate. Compare to Wikipedia, which has over a page on Kilgore Trout and lists every appearance and gives more "biographica
Wikipedia used to be good at sci-fi. (Score:2, Informative)
Then deletionists showed up. No amount of "personal appeals" will ever get me to like Wikipedia again. Hopefully as more people get fed up of Deletionists they will set up their own encyclopedias.
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I cannot say mush about scifi on Wikipedia but in general this is a huge problem for the entire site. Anything that does not appeal to or mean something to their small uniform group is delegated to a either far too little space on Wikipedia or none at all.
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/. in need of comment editing.
* "much"
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What's the worst is that you can add something important, like the CrystaLens eye implant that was FDA-approved, and they delete it. Happened to me after my eye surgey in 2006. I got the new lens, which unlike older IOLs allows one to focus.
I gave up after three times. Someone from wikipedial finally got it in there about 2008 or so after I bitched about it on slashdot.
Edit again? No fucking way. I'll look stuff up out of curiosity (it's great for track titles on sampled LPs the CDDB won't find), but edit?
Re:Wikipedia used to be good at sci-fi. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wikipedia's actually pretty good at sci-fi currently imo. It doesn't go into the level of fan detail on specific works as something like WookiePedia does, but it has pretty good coverage of the authors, novels, and general literary landscape. If anything, its sci-fi coverage is considerably better than its coverage of most other areas of fiction.
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Most remotely popular sci fi things (books, movies, tv shows, games) all have their own independent wikia anyway.
Who cares about deletionists? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares about deletionists? They're the last thing we need.
http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/notes_on_content [sf-encyclopedia.com]
Seems to just be a long list bragging about all the stuff they deleted. Golf clap for them. I'm so glad I won't be able to find stuff I'm trying to find, just what I always wanted in a website.
Bye bye guys don't forget to rm -Rf / on the way out.
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I don't get it, I can find more about sci-fi at my LOCAL library, definately the sci fi channel website... oh well, I wonder if this is what people are talking about when they post shit on / looking for hits to their website. This reminds me of a wordpress site maybe.
Deleted from the *print* version (Score:5, Informative)
All the deleted items listed in the link you provided are things they deleted in the 2nd edition of their book to make room for more worthy material given page limits imposed by their publisher. The very first paragraph makes clear that this is no longer a concern in the online version:
The notes below, from the 1993 second edition, are largely unrevised. In general we have been able to relax many constraints previously forced on us by the space limitations of a single printed volume. Some authors of short stories only, like Vance AANDAHL, appeared in the first edition, were cut to save space in the second and are now restored;
There is nothing in that article that suggests they plan on cutting material because it is non-notable. Only an admission that there is a lot of Sci-Fi out there and only so much time to write. I think they are destined to fail compared to fan contributed sites given this limitation, but that has nothing to do with deletionism.
memory-alpha.org (Score:1)
wikipaedia? (Score:1)
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Take a look at WP's article on Robert Heinlein [wikipedia.org] and then at SFE's [sf-encyclopedia.com]. Both have useful material. The WP article has photos, which the SFE article lacks. The WP article has many of the problems common to WP articles, including a dopey list at the end ("Inventions presaged" include the hand dryer!). The SFE article is more useful if you're looking for critical commentary, since POV (point of view) is verboten on Wikipedia. A big difference, of course, is that WP is free information, whereas SFE is only free-as-in
Re:wikipaedia? (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at WP's article on Robert Heinlein [wikipedia.org] and then at SFE's [sf-encyclopedia.com]. Both have useful material. [...] The SFE article is more useful if you're looking for critical commentary, since POV (point of view) is verboten on Wikipedia.
And this is a major difference. The SF Encyclopedia sucks in many, many ways but at least if you look up (say) an author you get a mainstream overview of his writing (I suppose "critical commentary" is the right term). With the WP you get hard facts but still can't tell if this might be an author worth reading.
The SFE article on Theodore Sturgeon was excellent.
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Hmm, when comparing David Weber's WP entry [wikipedia.org] with the SF enc. entry [sf-encyclopedia.com], I can't share your point of view.
Wikipedia (Score:4, Funny)
Twent years? MODESTY BLAISE, NICK CARTER?! (Score:5, Informative)
Clicking on their link "characters" gives you this embarrassing crap:
A - Character
B - Character
BATMAN
C - Character
CAPTAIN FUTURE
CAPTAIN HAZZARD
CAPTAIN JUSTICE
CAPTAIN MARVEL
CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
CAPTAIN VIDEO
CAPTAIN ZERO
CARTER, NICK
D - Character
DALEKS
DOC SAVAGE
E - Character
F - Character
FANTÔMAS
FLASH GORDON
FORD, ASHTON
FU MANCHU
G - Character
GAMERA
GARTH
H - Character
HOLMES, SHERLOCK
I - Character
J - Character
JAMES BOND
JEFF HAWKE
JUDGE DREDD
K - Character
KEMLO
L - Character
M - Character
MODESTY BLAISE
N - Character
NICK CARTER
O - Character
P - Character
PERRY RHODAN
Q - Character
R - Character
RHODAN, PERRY
S - Character
SAINT, THE
SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY
SHADOW, THE
SHE
SUPERMAN [character]
T - Character
TARZAN
TOM SWIFT
TRIFFID
TROUT, KILGORE
U - Character
V - Character
W - Character
X - Character
Y - Character
Z - Character
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P - Character
PERRY RHODAN
Holy crap - that entry clearly hasn't been updated since 1991, seeing as several of the people mentioned died in the last 20 years and more than 1000 volumes, errr, "booklets" have been published since...
Did they just stumble upon their grandpa's notes on science fiction in the attic and decided to dump them on the interwebs?
np: Scott Matthew - Felicity (Gallantry's Favorite Son)
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I still think wrestling is the shittiest syfy.
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Effect (Score:1)
And in other new... (Score:5, Funny)
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*Sigh* I wouldn't have had to post this if you hadn't responded to an AC sitting at -1, so please stop it. DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS!
"SyFy" is a rather gay trademark for a really bad "science fiction" TV network that has little science fiction at all, let alone good science fiction.
Giant cockroaches aren't sci-fi, even if Colm Meaney's in that awful movie (hey, he was in Die Hard II, too, and it wasn't sci-fi. And, why does he seem to die in every non-Star Trek movie he's in?)
As you pointed out, elves and trol
And thus were millions of man-hours spent (Score:2)
This won't solve anything.
The Kirk or Picard, who was best, argument will go on forever.
and it was Kirk!
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FTFY
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and.. . it WAS. . . Kirk!
FTFY - there isn't. . . a. . . pausebetween. . . every. . . single. . . word. . . andsometimes. . . any pause, IS. . . omitted.. . and. . somewords. . . ARE. . emphasized.
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WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!!!!!!
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(goddamned lameness filter. Hard as hell to tell some jokes around here. I wonder how much offtopic shit I'll have to post for the lameness filter to let me post that stupid Wrath of Khan joke?)
OK can we agree this site sucks? (Score:2)
I tried a few searches that failed, and it looks like others have too.
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Re:OK can we agree this site sucks? (Score:4, Insightful)
After quickly looking around, I was able to identify plenty of books/shows/movies that are not mentioned at all. And those that are mentioned are given only quite brief articles. When you compare the coverage to what Wikipedia has, this new site looks rather small. When you also think about how much material there is in Memory Alpha [memory-alpha.org], Wookiepedia [wikia.com], and all the other franchise-specific wikis, then this new site seems positively embarrassingly small.
However after reading a few articles, I think it does bring something new. In particular, the essays are not the factual NPOV articles that Wikipedia strives for. They are in fact highly opinionated about the quality and historic impact of various parts of SF. While I didn't agree with all the entries, they seemed mostly well-researched, and had lots of historical information and pointed out other works were given themes had also been explored.
My point is that this site gives us a different perspective. The essays and opinion pieces should be interesting to most anyone interested in SF. However I think calling it "The Encyclopedia of Sci-Fi" is a mistake. "Encyclopedia", in the modern Internet age, implies detailed coverage, in both breadth and depth; this site provides neither, from what I can see. Rather than advertising it as an authoritative factual cataloging of every SF work ever produced (which, again, is what "encyclopedia" means to most people nowadays, for better or worse), they should be emphasizing that they are providing an assortment of opinion pieces about the history of SF, written by selected experts.
Random CAPITALIZATION (Score:4, Insightful)
I must SAY that the complete CAPITALIZATION of every LINK in each ARTICLE makes it extremely DIFFICULT for me to READ. Perhaps there are PEOPLE that don't mind READING such oddly CAPITALIZED ARTICLES, but I am not one of THEM.
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Reads to me more like Tourettes Guy.
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Or the GUY who puts the POINTLESS sayings at the BOTTOM of SLASHDOT.
Congratulations, I guess... (Score:1)
On CREATING a site that is so UNREADABLE I can hardly tell if the INFORMATION is worth putting up with.
Seriously, changing the color of links is enough. I don't need every other word in caps in an article.
If I'm reading the article correctly this is an online version of a book last published in 1993. I'm assuming there are some additions, but basically it's the book... And they're working hard on uploading the rest of the content? So it's out there, and digital, but they're just having a hard time gettin
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On CREATING a site that is so UNREADABLE I can hardly tell if the INFORMATION is worth putting up with.
Seriously, changing the color of links is enough. I don't need every other word in caps in an article.
Van VOGT, A E Tagged: Author
(1912-2000) Canadian writer who moved to the USA at the end of 1944 after establishing his name as one of the creators of John W CAMPBELL Jr's GOLDEN AGE OF SF with a flood of material in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION, starting with "Black Destroyer" (July 1939 ASTOUNDING), though he had been active for several years in various other genres.
Wow... Long phrase without much useful information there. Had to read it for 2 mins to digest it. Sure sounds like an "author"'s words, than an encyclopedia.
Their server is 20 years old too (Score:3)
It appears to be run by a proper publishers, Hachette [hachette.co.uk] despite hiding behind a Domains By Proxy Registration.
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So you're saying the whole thing is a hachette job?
Figures...
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Curiously, they don't have any "U.S.", "U.K.", "England", "America", or such in their Culture->International listings. Do they not differentiate (all anglo-phone culture is one)? or have they just not gotten around to it?
Overall, I found it very disappointing. The CAPS choices for links renders the thing unreadable, the content is so far from complete as to be useless. The opinionated nature of it is ok, by me, but the general organization is too quirky to be something I'd recommend. Stick to the to
ISFDB (Score:5, Informative)
There's also ISFDB [isfdb.org]. It's just a database of fiction, but it seems to be very complete.
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Depends on what you are looking for I guess. I have the first and second printed editions of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and the second edition is excellent even today even if it is old. Not because it is complete but mainly for the well written articles, not least the articles on various themes like computers or clichés just to mention two. This is not just a list of authors and books. I look forward to reading the online version.
Posting anonymously because I'm at work and don't my password he
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Posting anonymously because I'm at work and don't my password here.
Just do what I do and use ******** as your password for every site,
You mean wikipedia? (Score:1)
I thought Wikipedia was already live?
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It's certainly full of SF stuff, isn't it?
On another site, one poster observed that a *really effective* fundraising campaign for Wikipedia would be one wherein they threaten to perma-delete 100 random pointless SF nerd/weeabo articles each day unless their fundraising needs were met.
Errata (Score:2)
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http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/stargate_sg-1 [sf-encyclopedia.com]
But I agree that the characters should get their own articles. I mean they could have at least mentioned WHAT that genetically engineered warrior race was called.
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About DS9 and TNG (Score:1)
scifi.wikia.com (Score:2)
grok (Score:2)
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light saber... yields no results I quit
I'd take that as a good sign. There probably aren't any entries for "Hansel and Gretel" or "Harry Potter's magic wand" either, considering neither of these have anything much to do with science fiction either.
I think it's a terrifc summary of the genre (Score:1)
[Disclosure: I wrote some entries for the second edition]. One of the things about science fiction as a genre is that many of the authors in the ghetto ended up having a conversation with each other about science fiction's themes, tropes and iconography, to the point where a common vocabulary was created. Authors don't need to describe how a FTL drive works, or what an ansible does, they are part of the common discourse. Writing a story where the last two people left alive on Earth are called Adam and Eve
Please, someone tell Hollywood (Score:2)
Hollywood seems to be at a loss for good ideas for science fiction movies. They should review this encyclopedia and start looking up sci-fi greats like Isaac Asimov for suggestions for movies as opposed to churning out comic book fodder from Stan Lee.
www.bangtoysmall.com (Score:1)