Web Watch- Science Fiction and Fantasy on the Web

by David S. Serchay -- Library Journal, 1/1/2001

Long before the web, fans of science fiction and fantasy (sf/f) used the Internet to reach a worldwide audience through mailing lists, FTP, and Usenet. With the rise of the web, participants from movie studios to writers to fans have expanded that reach in ways that even the genre's inventive pioneers could not have imagined.

Sites reviewed below range from AV presentations to collections of book, film, and TV reviews to simple link lists. While some sites, especially link lists, overlap, and many useful sites are fan-created and thus incomplete, an enormous array of information has become available.

The SF Site
http://www.sfsite.com
Date Visited: 12/5/00
Developer/Provider: Rodger Turner

The SF Site emphasizes the literary aspects of the genre, with book reviews and links to author web pages. The main page offers excerpts of interviews and book and film/television reviews (with links to the complete articles). These change on a biweekly basis.

On the left side of the page are links to the site's features and departments, though it is a better tactic to go to either the Site Index or Contents in the top menu bar. Under Authors, the site claims to include the web's "most comprehensive directory" of sf, fantasy, and horror writers on the web. While the directory is extensive but not exhaustive, each page contains an alphabetical list of authors helpfully divided into official (author-created and/or authorized) and fan-created pages.

Past author interviews are collected on another page accessed from either the Site Index or Contents. The site's Chronological and Alphabetical List includes both links to previous issues and an A-Z list that allows users to locate past reviews. Other features include additional archives and listings of sf conventions.

Available at the top of most pages is a keyword search. The reorganized index in Contents allows better access to individual reviews and author web sites. The SF Site's main page also contains links to the homepages of various genre magazines, like Analog and Asimov's, though only partial contents are offered.

Bottom Line: This well-organized, content-rich site provides excellent access to the literary side of this genre, featuring authors, interviews, magazines, and publishers. Bibliographies are best accessed through the Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase (p. 37).

Uchronia
http://www.uchronia.net
Date Visited: 12/4/00
Developer/Provider: Robert B. Schmunk

Alternate history is a popular sf/f sub-genre. The idea of "What if" (different outcomes to wars, winners to elections, and so on) is fascinating, sometimes incorporating elements of sf/f (e.g., aliens invade during World War II). Uchronia, a fan-created page originally begun in 1991 as a "flat file" posted to certain Usenet groups, provides information on books, series, and short stories.

A consistent left-side menu provides several ways to search for a book or story. A scroll-down Aâ?"Z list has author names, with titles beside each one. There are also lists of anthologies (arranged alphabetically by author/editor) and series (again by author with the name of the series next to that of the author).

Clicking on Divergence produces a "Divergence Chronology," which includes the books/stories based on the year in which the story's history diverged from ours, ranging from the dawn of time to the 1990s. Finally, a keyword search lets users view stories dealing with or featuring the entered term (e.g., Civil War). This area also provides access to a list of older alternate history titles, foreign titles, reference works, a cover gallery, links, and upcoming works.

However the user finds them, the titles of the books/stories link to individual entries. Listings for books may include the "point of divergence," a synopsis, the publishing history, and the cover (including alternate and foreign covers). Anthologies often register many of the stories that they contain, along with hyperlinks to the stories where applicable. Short story and novella menus include the "point of divergence" with the "what if," a synopsis, and the magazines and/or books in which the story appears. Not all alternate history stories are included, but additional stories are added on a regular basis.

Bottom Line: A handy starting point for fans of alternate history, this site provides only the basics of a book/story, yet it is enough to start readers on the path to the library or bookstore.

SF-Lovers
http://sflovers.rutgers.edu/index.htm
Date Visited: 12/5/00
Developer/Provider: Saul Jaffe

SF-Lovers has been on the Internet, in various forms, for more than 20 years. The web site has five featured areas, with the SF-Lovers Reference Section and the Science Fiction Resource Guide the most informative.

The Resource Guide, a helpfully annotated link list divided into more than 20 categories, is hosted by this site and contains even more links than the Reference Section. Major categories include authors, bibliographies, fandom, online fiction, movies, television, and writer resources.

The Reference Section is divided into seven categories: art, awards, books, fandom, films, space, and TV. While the selections are unfortunately not annotated, they provide an alternate entry to many links. Also, icons for the seven categories recur throughout.

The SF-Lovers Convention List, also found under features, gives basic information on genre-related conventions worldwide. The frames version provides two lineups -- one in geographical order, the other in chronological. Only the chronological list contains hyperlinks to some convention web sites. On the main page there is a separate listing for the World Science Fiction Society, which puts on the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) each year.

Finally, the SF-Lovers Digest, an electronic fanzine with discussions on various genre topics, is archived here. By first clicking either the icon on the side, or its listing in the featured areas, and then by clicking on review, users can scroll through the indexes of previous issues. Once users know which issue they want, they can enter the volume and issue number and call up text-only digests dating back to the early 1980s.

SF-Lovers also has a "search this site" function, with an icon on the main page, that searches through the web and text files. However, when doing a search for items in the SF-Lovers Digest, it will search only through the indexes.

Bottom Line: While this site's archives and conventions are of limited interest, the Resource Guide and, secondarily, the Reference Section provide a rich array of links in this genre.

Alternate Sites
The SFTV Page
http://www.sftv.org/sftv/sftv.html
This simple, graphics-free site provides schedules, news, and additional information for various sf/f TV shows. The most important link, regularly updated, features Current Upcoming SFTV Shows & News. However, only episode titles are provided, with no data on plot, guest stars, etc. Web pages for the shows, mainly official but with some fan sites, are listed (but without hyperlinks). SFTV is also posted to several Usenet groups and can be e-mailed. The main page has access to basic episodes and archived schedules and messages.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)
http://www.sfwa.org
A writers' advocacy organization of over 1200 sf/f writers, artists, and editors, SFWA also gives out the Nebula Award, a major genre prize. While parts of the site are for members only, much is useful to the general public. The site offers articles on the craft and business of writing, excerpts from the organization's Bulletin, online locations for stories by SFWA members (both free and pay sites), recommended reading and reviews, and a Links page. The latter includes links to members' pages (though The SF Site has more entries) and writer's resources. Most useful may be the category of SF/F-Specific sites, including market reports.

Sci-Fi Channel
http://www.scifi.com
Cable's Sci-Fi Channel offers much entertaining content. On the very busy main page, highlighting the area name (e.g., Sci-Fi Today and Sci-Fi Com Presents) leads to a drop-down menu. The former area includes news from the Sci-Fi Wire, Science Fiction Weekly (which includes additional news, reviews, and interviews), and selections from Sci-Fi Magazine. Sci-Fi Com Presents provides various types of audiovisual programs: Exposure, which shows short films; Mindprobe, an online interactive sf trivia game; and Seeing-Ear Theatre, with audio programming divided into three areas. The Weekly Series contains ongoing stories told through comic strips, animated cartoons, and original audio theater.

Fantastic Fiction
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk
Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase (ISFDB)http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb/sfdbase.html
Fantastic Fiction, which contains over 1000 bibliographies, is a good secondary source for sf/f bibliographies, while ISFDB is broader. Fantastic Fiction offers three search options: an A-Z author browse (with an option to limit the search to sf, fantasy, or horror) and keyword searches by title or author. The browse function brings up tallies of books, short stories, and awards won. ISFDB gathers author bibliographies, publication bibliographies, award listings, magazine content listings, anthology and collections content listings, yearly fiction indexes, and forthcoming books. (Still, as a fan-created page, it remains incomplete.) Search by author, title, series, or year. Author bibliographies contain hotlinks to collaborators, award listings, and publication data. Anthologies and short story collections include a table of contents. This site can help patrons locate where a short story appears. However, getting bibliographic information on a book/story involves a roundabout method that includes going to the author's information and then searching the page for the title.

Spacelight: Science Fiction and Fantasy http://members.tripod.com/~gwillick/sffobit.html
This regularly updated site contains biographical information on deceased sf/f writers. Entries can include birth and death information (including where they are interred), marital information, awards won, a brief biography, sources for bibliography and biography, and an obituary. When available, there are hyperlinks to the latter three items. Beware regular pop-up windows.

Fantasy Finder Fantasy Links
http://www.hoh.se/fantasyfinder/fantlink.html University of Michigan Fantasy and Science Fiction Website
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf
Fantasy Finder divides its unannotated links into link collections, magazines (both print and e-zines), author pages (both official and fan-created), publishers, reviews and bibliographies, online fiction, bookstores, fantasy art, and miscellaneous. The University of Michigan site, which goes beyond fantasy to include sf, offers an Online Library, containing many public domain stories available online via Project Gutenberg and other sources. Its lightly annotated Links page includes author information, commercial sites, and research tools.