Customer Reviews

Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book sight unseen or without even a description, since i do love things SF. Upon opening and beginning to read it, I realized that it wasn't quite what I expected.

First of all, its from England, which is not a bad thing at all, but it does mean that British authors have a more prominent and highlighted presence in this work than Americans are accustomed to reading about. Iain Banks and Stephen Baxter have pretty big entries, for example, and George R.R. Martin has none at all.

And second, it was written by a fan for a fan (admitted in the first paragraph of the preface). I had been expecting something like the big encyclopedias out there, done by an editor or a writer that I had simply not heard of. So, the viewpoint is different, and much more subjective than you might expect. You won't find cold and clinical analysis of the entries. This can be a good thing, if you don't mind the presence of the author bias.

The Encyclopedia itself is broken up into several parts. After a preface, Mann discusses the origins and history of SF. The next section, the longest, discusses selected authors. The subsequent section looks at SF in movies and TV. Much like the Encyclopedia of SF, Mann has a goodly section on thematic entries, as well. Finally, he finishes the work with a look at SF societies and awards and such, and has a substantial section on internet resources. Although the hazards of the Internet make such sections perilously prone to being outdated, it was a pleasure to see one here. The book is cross-referenced quite well, too. Those looking for a large, exhaustive encyclopedia on the order of the John Clute Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (or his one for Fantasy) should look elsewhere. If you want a more idiosyncratic view, with a British slant on authors and SF in general,this may be more of your cup of tea. And it IS cheaper and more intimate than the other monster SF encyclopedias on the market. It was not what I expected, but I am well satisfied with the Mammoth Encyclopedia of SF.

Expections run high when a 600 plus page encyclopedia of SF is published. The major section of the text, "Science Fiction on the Page," devoted to SF writers, takes up nearly 300 pages. However, this encyclopedia is fannishly idiosyncratic, to say the least, as the following list of omitted writers attests - to wit: Tony Daniel, Avram Davidson, Gordon R. Dickson, George Alec Effinger, James Gunn, Alexander Jablokov, Nancy Kress, Ian McDonald, George R. R. Martin, Andre Norton, Rebecca Ore, Robert Reed, Mike Resnick, Frank M. Robinson, Fred Saberhagen, Charles Sheffield, Dan Simmons, Clifford Simak, Cordwainer Smith, William Tenn, Jack Williamson, George Zebrowski, and David Zindell. No offense, but frankly, I could have done with a little less on Eugene Byrne, Simon R. Green, Kim Newman, et. al., for entries on Terry Bisson, C.M. Kornbluth, Stanley Weinbaum, Robert L. Forward, Michael Flynn, Michael Bishop, Barry Malzberg, James Tiptree, Jr., George Turner, et.al. The number of important SF writers neglected in this enclyclopedia is staggering. This is less a comprehensive reference work than a deficient compilation by a fan whose predisposition toward Brithsh SF and occasional crankiness makes for a disappointing entry into SF reference field.

This book, both by title and description, purports to be a reference source on the genre of science fiction. In some ways, it is exactly that, but unfortunately, it has such glaring omissions that it is more of a novelty than a good source of information.

On the plus side is the organization of the book, which is essentially broken down into four sections: a brief history of SF, a listing of authors and their major works, a listing of significant science fiction movies and a glossary of key topics in the genre (aliens, robots, etc.). This format makes the book easy to read either end-to-end or just randomly (although an end-to-end read will be diminished a bit by redundancies). In addition, the author is a decent enough writer to make this a relatively pleasant read.

Unfortunately, the omissions in this book are so apparent that they make the reader question the author's true knowledge of the genre. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the section on authors, where such prominent science fiction names as Piers Anthony, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Keith Laumer and Clifford Simak (one of the legends in the field) are missing while much more obscure authors get space. This is not a judgement on the quality of the authors either mentioned or forgotten, merely their level of contribution to the genre. In addition, there are cases where plot descriptions are inaccurate.

While an interesting read, the flaws in this book are so significant and obvious that it cannot rate any higher than two stars. While this might give a reader a glimpse into the world of science fiction, it is a distorted glimpse, like through a piece of flawed glass: you can get a lot of the details, but the overall picture is a mess.

There is so much wrong with this book its hard to put it in a short review. Let me keep it objective and give just a few of the many, many inaccuracies that fill its pages. First, this pompous tome refers to the movie "When Worlds Collide" as being based on the pulp fiction of the 1930's, when as everyone else knows it was based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer (the book is not even mentioned in the description of this classic film). Another example of a clear disconnect with the material it claims as subject is the entry which describes the milieu of the film "Silent Running" as being in the "throes of a post-apocalyptic nightmare" ruled by an authoritarian government. This movie never makes reference to any such thing. In fact the society is described by some of the characters as being idyllic. But for me the last straw was the entry describing one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made,"The Thing from Another World". It states that the movie is set in Antarctica, when actually it is (again, as the rest of us know) set in the Arctic (North Pole). The entry then goes on to tell us that the researchers "thaw" the flying saucer when they accidentally blow it up, and that the Thing is found in the saucer (after it was thawed, of course), not in the ice.

My advice is that if you have not bought this book, don't! If you have, throw it away. It is worse than no good. This book gives the term Encyclopedia a bad name.

There is little in this volume that isn't covered more completely (and objectively) in the John Clute/Peter Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. If you only have the space or money for one book, this isn't the one.

I am not a big science- fiction fan, and do not know the Literature well. Other reviewers on Amazon who do seem to know it quite well, are very disappointed in this work. They find that it omits many major authors, that its focus is too British, and scants the Americans, that it contains errors, and that there are better comparable products on the market.
As a novice I was attracted to one of the sections of the work primarily. There are Chapters on ' The History and Origins of Science Fiction' 'Science Fiction on the Page' ( which talks about tens of writers) 'Science Fiction on the Screen' 'Terms , Themes and Devices in Science Fiction' 'Societies and Awards'.
What interested me was the 'Terms Themes' chapter as I wanted to learn more of the vocabulary of the Genre. And this especially as I find that in certain scientific questions ( A recent discussion of ' the end of the world' in 'Best American Science Writing 2005' highlighted this) where there is no real ' scientific answer' scientists tend to go for the fictional and most imaginary scenarios they can think of.
I am in the midst of reading the 'Terms Themes' section and finding it of great value. Concepts are traced from their origin to their emergent meanings.
So on the whole I believe that this is a good book from which it is possible to derive a lot of information.

This review is for The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by George Mann, copyright 2001, ISBN 0-7867-0887-5 (paperback). I find it necessary to include this information, as Amazon is not always accurate in where they post your review, and this review could be posted to many other web sites, as Amazon sees fit to allow.

Full disclosure first. I only read the 24-page essay at the beginning of the book: "The History and Origins of Science Fiction." In fact, I bought the book only to read this essay (and the book only cost me $1 at the local library book sale).

The essay organizes the various subgenres of science fiction over the years, and outlines the major trends in science fiction within the periods covered. I found that this knowledge will help me to find subgenres of science fiction more easily.

I browsed the remainder of the 612-page book, and see that it has biographical writeups of many authors, and descriptions of some of their works. This book may be useful to you if you want to know more about a work by a particular author or you know either the author's name or the title of a book and want more information.

The essay also recommends Trillion Year Spree (Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove) and The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (Thomas M. Disch) for more about the history of sci-fi. Perhaps I'll check them out.

I had high hopes for this book, when I grabbed it (on a whim, off the discount rack). However, although it had some helpful information on some authors I'd never read before, I found it suffered from a number of major flaws:

SHORTCOMMINGS:

1) AUTHORS: As luciusmichael mentioned on 22-Aug-2001, this book is almost as noteworthy for which authors it omits as it is for who it includes.

2) BIAS: This book is noticeably biased towards British SF, and against American SF, which I found unhelpful and, at times, both annoying and naive.

3) ERRORS: This book is chock full of them ... almost as if many of the entries were written off the cuff from half-remembered snippets, with little or no independant review/editing. Case in point: in his description of the movie "Forbidden Planet" (which he correctly identified as an adaptation of Shakespeare's play "The Tempest"), he gives a completely incorrect ending to film (note to author: they did NOT bombard the planet from orbit ... they rigged the planetary reactor to self-destruct before launching). Ditto for the movie "Predator" (note to author: "Dutch" did not kill the alien with a hand grenade ... the creature engaged a self-destruct `baby-nuke' device on it's forearm after getting fatally pinned in a dead-fall). There are lots more egregious errors, but this is enough to give people a clue of what to expect.

4) QUALITY: Rather than being written by a professional editor or author with long experience in the field, it was written instead by a fan ... and it really shows, given the rampant omissions, personal bias, and inaccuracies that occur throughout.

So, what's good ?

A) ORGANIZATION: I like how it's organized. It starts with a brief historical overview of SF, then provides an A-Z listing of authors and list of bibliographical highlights, followed by a listing of noteworthy science fiction movies, and lastly by glossary of terminology for the genre. The author could (and should) have written a lot more in the historical overview section up front ... but that's where we get into the differences between fan-authors and experienced professional writers/editors in the field.

B) COMMENTARY: The commentary is mostly hit or miss, and it definitely has an unhelpful and distracting British bias (as already mentioned), and is filled with errors in places, but some of the career retrospective comments on some of the authors are moderately interesting and helpful.

Overall, I recommend people save their money. I found this to be a weak offering that killed a lot of perfectly good trees.

George Mann's accessible and well-organized encyclopedia of the genre makes for a fun read and a great introduction to emerging authors. While Mann succeeds in highlighting promising new talents, he lamentably excludes many deserving "big names." And the section devoted to SF movies and television, while entertaining, seems ill-suited for a work concerned almost wholly with literary works. Regardless of any given reader's bickering with who Mann chooses to exlude, the "Encyclopedia" is a studious and helpful reference for genre addicts and curious initiates.

I agree that alot of worthy authors were left out of this book(Michael Swanwick, James Morrow and Neil Gaiman to name a few), but the vast ammount of information that is included makes it well worth the price! Half of the book is comprised of author bios including some of the top new writers like Ken MacLeod and Michael Marshall Smith. Another section is dedicated solely to themes, terms, and devices in SF. Overall this book is very current and very well done. In future editions it would be a good idea if the History of SF section were dropped(It has been done SOOO many times) and the SF Film section were its own book. That way all 612 pages would be strictly authors, books, lists and awards. Also my cover art is different(much better) than the one shown above, and it also includes some of the authors previous reviewers were missing from their copys. The only other Encyclopedia that comes close to this one is the book by John Clute, but it's more than twice as much and its a bit dated(time for a new edition?).