Customer Reviews

Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction the De

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
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This is an excellent reference book for science fiction enthusiasts, as well as the uninitiated. This encyclopedia is very similar to John Clute's "SF: The Illustrated Encylcopedia" (1995), but not quite as packed with information. (I bought David Pringle's version first. I found John Clute's version two years later.) I think this book gives a more detailed account of film and TV than John Clute's one, but less about the works of the writers and the social/political issues that influenced them.

Like John Clute's book, we get an informed, thorough description of science fiction's beginnings, which go back quite a few centuries, as well as an overview of the various sub-categories that fall within the overall genre (space opera, disasters, alternative histories, time travel, nuclear war, etc). A list of the most memorable books within each category is also mentioned.

Seven decades of science fiction cinema are covered (up to 1995), along with television shows, many that are well-known, some a bit more obscure. Biographies of writers and film makers are included. These are understandably brief, due to the limited amount of space within the book's 300 pages. But to compensate for this we get a list of famous heroes and villains, including Alex from "A Clockwork Orange", Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Dan Dare and the Mekon. Don't forget the Daleks.

David Pringle's book has plenty of illustrations and photographs with witty captions, an exhaustive list of reading material to go through and a useful glossary. For anyone new to science fiction, this book is a very good place to start.

An absolutely wonderful book covering many of the shows sci-fi people love. They do seem to gloss over a couple of the shows I consider to be some of the best, but this is still the best book of its kind I have seen. The author does a good job of covering many different shows even ones that were short lived. I recommend this book to anyone who loves sci-fi shows, this book will give you a good history of many older shows all the way stuff that's on the air now. You may even come across a couple of shows you had forgotten were ever around.

David Pringles "Ultimate Guide" is my bible to great sci-fi literature so its only fitting he wrote the encyclopedia as well. this guy will not steer you wrong. I just wish he published more often....

It is interesting to compare the differences, particularly when they are talking about early SF, for example, between the Clute encyclopedia and this one. This is also worth a look, but it is much more focused on video, in general, but does give an author list with bios, and a 'heroes/villains/characters' list, which is fun, indeed.