In Praise of . . . The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

SF Gateway’s respect and admiration for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction should be obvious – we did have the site built for them, after all – but we really couldn’t let our series of ‘In Praise of …’ posts go on any longer without featuring this most authoritative of all SF resources.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is an essential reference for us in compiling bibliographies, writing biographies, researching blog posts, gathering cover quotes, generating ideas for blog posts – and now the evil geniuses at the SFE have developed a classic SF cover gallery. Largely comprised of images scanned from the libraries of John Clute, Judith Clute and Roger Robinson, and coded by the SFE’s master of technology, David Langford, it launched on 15th May with over 1,800 covers and is now up to a staggering 5,142! Truly, it is a mix of nostalgia and wonder and a treasure trove of classic SF imagery.

You can read some explanatory notes here and visit the gallery itself here. And if you can do so without losing yourself for hours in the nostalgic glow of sense of wonder, you’re a better sentient being than we are.