Friday, December 14, 2012
Science Fiction: The illustrated Encyclopedia
John Clute, et al. Science Fiction. The Illustrated Encyclopedia(1995) A coffee table book: thick glossy paper, beautifully printed, lots of pictures, well designed. And quite reliable and informative. It appears the text is by Clute, and he had a team of people helping out with the pictures, fact checking, etc. It is of course not as scholarly and inclusive as a true encyclopedia would be, but within its limits it's well done. It should have a more complete section on authors (the ones included get mini-critiques, so there was obviously a space problem.) Clute's judgement of films is defective IMO; among other things, he just doesn't like Star Trek, and over-values Star Wars. He has a bias towards hard SF, and gives high marks for humour - which makes his omission of Spider Robinson curious. Maybe he just doesn't like Robinson's smart-alecky tone. The tone of the book is a bit too earnest for my taste. All the same, it's a book any serious reader of SF should have. A similar book on (science) fantasy would be welcome. *** (1999)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Mice in the Beer (Ward, 1960)
Norman Ward. Mice In the Beer (1960. Reprinted 1986) Ward, like Stephen Leacock, was an economics and political science professor, Leacock...
-
John Cunningham. The Tin Star (Collier’s, December 4, 1947) The short story adapted for High Noon . As often happens, the movie retains v...
-
Noel Coward The Complete Short Stories (1985) Coward was a very clever writer. All of these stories are worth reading, but few stick ...
-
Patrick Hamilton. The Charmer (1953) Originally titled Mr Simpson and Mr Gorse , retitled and reprinted in 1989 to take advantage of t...
No comments:
Post a Comment