The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [antikvár]

Basically, there are two ways of researching a reference book. The first, and unhappily perhaps the more common, is for the compilers to cannibalize previous reference books for information. The trouble with this system, apart from a certain unfairness to pioneer workers who are sometimes not even credited, although heavily copied, is that it tends to repeat mistakes: actual errors are sometimes carried through four or five books until finally, because of the "authority" of the printed word, they are generally accepted as true. The second is to go to the original sources. Although our task would have been impossible without the pioneer work of such bibliographers and indexers as Everett F. Bleiler, Bradford M. Day, Donald B. Day, H.W. HaU, Walt Lee, Norm Metcalfand. pre-eminently, Donald H. Tuck, along with many others who, like the above, are given entries in this volume (see the entry on Bibliographies and Indexes), and although in a minority of cases we relied on their findings, wherever possible we adopted the second research system. We believe this volume to be a substantial contribution to original research in science fiction; it is certainly the most comprehensive work on the subject ever published. It contains over 2800 entries, not counting cross-references. As we suppose must always be the case with encyclopedists innocently setting out, we initially imagined that it might be possible to put everything in: all the relevant facts. We were almost instantly disillusioned. We now believe that, though we have gone a surprisingly long way towards achieving that aim, such an accomplishment would be impossible within the covers of a single volume; nor would the life-span of a handful of researchers encompass sufficient time for total comprehensiveness. Sf is a bigger field than most readers could begin to imagine. Let us then be quite frank about what is in and what is not. Although this volume is arranged on an alphabetical basis, we originally grouped the entries according to type: Authors, Themes, Films, Magazines, Editors, Critics, Illustrators, Film-makers, Publishers, Pseudonyms, Series, Television programmes. Original anthologies. Comics, Sf in various countries, Terminology, Awards, Fanzines and a small collection of Miscellanea. 1. To begin at the beginning: Authors. The fundamental principle of selection is very simple. Ideally, all authors who have written works which are arguably sf and published them in book form. and who are not purely writers of juveniles, are given individual entries. We shall not tempt fate, however, by claiming that we have met that ideal; we shall certainly find ourselves having omitted some 20th-century authors (and are aware of it in the case of some authors of routine sf adventure), and for earlier centuries we have not attempted to be fully comprehensive. In treating the 20th century, we were forced to make difficult decisions about the inclusion of many authors, and we hope we have erred on the side of generosity. We have tried to include the Juvenile writers most relevant to sf in general (so that you will find Carl H. Claudy and Alan Garner represented, but not Monica Hughes or Hugh Lofting). We have also given entries to the most important fantasy writers, since the readership of fantasy overlaps substantially with that of sf, even though, in our view, the works of authors like Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison, H.P. Lovecraft or J.R.R. Tolkien cannot in any rigorous sense be assimilated into sf. Many fantasy writers have been important influences within the sf field, however, and for that reason we felt it appropriate to include a selection. We also had to make some difficult decisions concerning the pattern of sub-genres that fringe sf. Some of these are: Lost-race and Lost-world stories, Prehistoric stories. Future-war stories, Political satires set in imaginary countries or in the near future. Heroic-fantasy stories set on other worlds, and Spiritualist and Astral-body stories. We have generously represented these sub-genres, giving full entries to the most important writers who used them, but we do not claim (especially in the extraordinarily prolific field of Future-war stories) to be fully comprehensive in these cases. We have not restricted ourselves to authors whose work has appeared in book form only. A number of sf writers since 1926 who did not graduate, or who have not yet graduated, from magazines and anthologies are represented. Further information about Author entries is given in "How to use this book" and the Checklist of abbreviations. The most interesting fact to emerge from the making up of a list of those authors who were to receive entries is that there are more non-genre sf writers (i.e. writers not associated directly with sf magazines or sf publishing imprints) than there are genre sf writers. We realize that the greatest public interest is in the latter group, and we are sure that we have done justice to the Isaac Asimovs and Robert Heinleins of the genre sf world in terms of the length and solidity of their entries, but we are m: a-.A \ i-i-' t 'i- i