SF Site
Entry updated 19 February 2024. Tagged: Publication.
Web-based science fiction magazine launched by John O'Neill and Rodger Turner in June 1997, making it one of the oldest sf websites still in existence. O'Neill left to launch Black Gate, a site devoted primarily to fantasy and gaming (first issue, November 2000) but Turner continued as editor, assisted by Wayne McLaurin and Neil Walsh. Originally published as a rolling series of updates to the home page, the Online Magazine eventually settled into a schedule of two issues per month.
Although the earliest extant version of SF Site is still recognizably the same publication available today, it took time for the structure of the site to cohere. It became primarily a review site covering mostly new books, but with some attention devoted to Cinema, SF Magazines and Television. Over the years the site has accumulated a large body of reviewers, and additionally hosts an archive of reviews (not technically part of SF Site proper) originally posted by Steven H Silver, who long continued to review and maintain the news blog for the site and to compile an annual "In Memoriam" column covering genre deaths for each year since 2001. Although quality inevitably varies, SF Site managed to maintain a broadly consistent voice that generally manages to be both serious and populist. In 2007 the site also added a regular column by Jeff VanderMeer, "Dispatches from Smaragdine", which brought a more idiosyncratic tone slightly at odds with the rest of the site. A news column and a continuing series of author Interviews were also featured, though these took second place to the main emphasis on reviews.
The posting of two new issues per month was suspended as of December 2012, owing to falling revenues from advertising; SF Site has not been significantly updated since 2015, when the most recent new book review was added. This was followed in 2016 by Silver's final "In Memoriam" for the year 2015. The copious archived material continues to have some historical value.
The editors of this encyclopedia are grateful for permission to use cover images from SF Site in their Picture Gallery feature [see under links below]. [PKi/DRL]
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