SF Reference Books

By Galen Strickland

Here are a few books that have a lot of great information about the SF and Fantasy genres. Anyone truly interested in learning as much as possible about the literature would do well to seek out these reference sources. Unfortunately, as of the last time I checked (8/22/10) all but one of these titles are out of print, and I've moved it up to the top of the list. For all the others, just click the one viable link on that title, then you can do your own searches from there. Other options are to check on ebay, or try BookFinder.com. Good Luck.

1. The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places edited by Brian Stableford

2. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, probably the most comprehensive collection of information on the genre that has ever been published, but as previously stated all editions of this book, both the original 1979 release as well as the 1993 update and the CD-ROM version from Grolier, are out of print. It was supposed to have been updated yet again in 2007, both in print and a constantly updated online version, but that is on hold at this time as far as I can figure out.

3. Billion Year Spree by Brian W. Aldiss. A revised version in collaboration with David Wingrove was later published as Trillion Year Spree.

4. The Road to SF (4 volumes), and Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction by James E. Gunn

5. The Way the Future Was by Frederik Pohl

6. New Maps of Hell by Kingsley Amis

7. The Futurians by Damon Knight

8. Astounding Days by Arthur C. Clarke

9. Age of Wonders by David G. Hartwell

10. Science Fiction of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History by Frank M. Robinson

If anyone else has other SF reference books to reccomend I would be interested in hearing about them.

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