Online SF Resources

Entry updated 3 February 2025. Tagged: Theme.

No modern reference work can ignore the valuable online resources which have grown and proliferated since this encyclopedia's second edition in 1993. Wikipedia is generally the researcher's initial port of call, with its entries usually appearing in first place (and almost certainly on the first page) of results from any internet search. Though its depth of coverage of individual authors varies wildly, Wikipedia information on sf is often very voluminous, especially for topics with a popular media connection – it offers, for example, complete episode guides and synopses of Doctor Who, Star Trek in all its iterations, and many other media sf franchises. The Internet Movie Database is a vital source of basic Cinema facts, likewise not restricted to sf. The more specialist Internet Speculative Fiction Database or ISFDB is incomparable for its cataloguing of books and stories published, with every edition known to its compilers of every work being listed, but with no indication of what may or may not be missing from lists, with early or difficult-to-obtain editions sometimes missing without any marker of their absence, so that the ISFDB should not be used to establish dates of first publication or full printing histories without cross-checking (the present encyclopedia confines itself to first editions, significant revisions and variant titles); the ISFDB's strongest area of coverage is North America-based writers over the last half century or so, though coverage is constantly broadening. Mention should also be made of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database at Texas A&M University – initially created by Hal W Hall – which indexes very many essays, reviews and critical writings about sf. All of these are routinely and gratefully used by this encyclopedia's editors and contributors. See the links below for a further selection.

Many individual entries, such as those for specific artists, authors, Awards, Fanzines, Online Magazines, SF Magazines and so on, also include relevant external links at the end (always headed "links" in boldface). [DRL/JC]

see also: Online Newszines.

links

general

bibliographic

art

SciFi Art Directory

awards

Science Fiction Awards Database (expanded from the former Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards)
Science Fiction Awards Watch

specialist bibliographies (selected)

texts (selected)

fandom (selected)

previous versions of this entry

Internet Archive