The Encyclopedia of Sci-fi Goes Live Online

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."

Comments

Wikipedia used to be good at sci-fi.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Wikipedia used to be good at sci-fi.

[wisnoskij]

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.

Twent years? MODESTY BLAISE, NICK CARTER?!

[G3ckoG33k]

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

ISFDB

[bcrowell]

There's also ISFDB. It's just a database of fiction, but it seems to be very complete.

Re:wikipaedia?

[jgrahn]

Take a look at WP's article on Robert Heinlein and then at SFE's. 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.

Deleted from the *print* version

[pavon]

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.