Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science Fiction

Contested Jack Vance novels merger to Demon Princes

There is a discussion at Talk:Demon Princes. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:11, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

References subpage

I've updated the References subpage with a list of good SF sources along with availability, as suggested by Piotrus in /Archive 3#Good sources. It has links to the Internet Archive and The Wikipedia Library, and if those two are unavailable, Google Books previews. I think everything Piotrus and TompaDompa mentioned are there; I haven't looked into Mike Christie's huge list yet. Please feel free to expand the list! (Note: the "Fannish references" section is from an old version of the page from 2011.) Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 05:48, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. I am about to be limited to iPad editing for a day or so, and away from my books, so may not be able to post much, but I will try to post some suggestions. The library link in my signature is at least ten years out of date, and maybe this will give me the incentive to update it. Some suggestions off the top of my head:

• The Magill Survey of Science Fiction Literature and Survey of Fantasy Literature; five volumes of assessments of famous books.
• Mike Ashley's four volume History of the Science Fiction Magazine from the 1970s, and the updated history that began to appear in 2000, starting with The Time Machines.
• Ashley & Tymn's Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines.
• Galactic Central, a reliable source for bibliographic data, and which includes the Contento indexes.
• Unfortunately we need to note that the [http:isfdb.org ISFDB] is not reliable for FAs, per some FAC review discussions, though it's a great place to find information that can be verified elsewhere.
• Bleiler's Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years and Science Fiction: The Early Years.
• Ashley and Lowndes The Gernsback Days.
• For UK fannish history, Rob Hansen's Then is an encyclopedic source.
• There are bios of individual writers, such as Asimov's autobiographies and Mark Rich's book on Kornbluth, but I don't know if it's worth listing all of those -- I assume we're looking at fairly general references here?
• How about things like Damon Knight's The Futurians, which is heavily focused on a small group over a short time?

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:36, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for these! I've added everything you suggested except for the individual writer bios. Yes I think it'd be good to keep it to general references. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I added some more that I've used for various articles. I wasn't sure where to place all of them, so there's a bunch of "others" now. TompaDompa (talk) 17:01, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Renamed it to "general references" - maybe that sounds better? Feel free to re-org if you have a better idea. (We added a couple of books at the same time; I've removed duplicates.) Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 18:10, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

A few more possible additions:

• There's another volume of Mike Ashley's history out now, called Rise of the Cyberzines.
• How about a section on sf art? Great Balls of Fire by Harry Harrison, Infinite Worlds by Vincent di Fate, and Science Fiction Art by Brian Aldiss all come to mind. There's also James Gunn, Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, but that's more of a general history with lots of illustrations. The same goes for David Kyle's A Pictorial History of Science Fiction.
• Leif Davin has two useful books: Partners in Wonder about women in sf 1926-65; and Pioneers of Wonder; interviews with early figures in sf, such as Eshbach, Moskowitz, Lasser, and Hornig.
• Paul Carter's The Creation of Tomorrow and del Rey's The World of Science Fiction should probably be added; Carter is primarily focused on magazines; del Rey covers 1926-50 and so does cover the magazines but is a bit more general.
• Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding is focused on Campbell, Asimov, Heinlein, and Hubbard and is an excellent recent book.
• There's a 140-page history of pre-Amazing magazines in the back of Moskowitz's Under the Moons of Mars; that and Mike Ashley's The Age of the Storyteller are probably worth adding, though they focus on the genre before it became a genre.
• Sam Moskowitz has two volumes of biographical sketches of important sf figures, both genre and pre-genre, in Seekers of Tomorrow and Explorers of the Infinite. I have heard that there are some errors in these, so I use them sparingly, but they can be useful.
• Donald Tuck's three volume Encyclopedia of Science Fiction should be included. It only covers up to 1968, and large parts of it have been superseded by other bibliographical resources, but it's still quotable for opinions on stories and books, and it does have some bibliographical information that I've found useful and can't find elsewhere.
• The Dictionary of Literary Biography has a volume on sf writers; it's volume 8, in two physical volumes.
• Do we want to list books of scholarship about sf? These range from old books like Inquiry into Science Fiction by Basil Davenport, from 1955, through Dark Suvin's Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, to Westfahl's The Mechanics of Wonder. There may be too many of these to list, so perhaps we should only include the ones that editors have found useful in constructing articles. I've almost exclusively focused on magazine articles, so I have to say I haven't used this sort of book much, and can't speak to which are useful, though I do have quite a few.
• There must be a ton of references for film sf, which is an area I have few books on.
• Three old critical books I have found useful to get opinions on old classic stories (or old crappy stories): Damon Knight's In Search of Wonder, and James Blish's The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand, both under his William Atheling alias.
• When discussing a story or novel, it's always worth digging up reviews. I have an old review index by Hal Hall, but it's largely (but not completely) duplicated by the ISFDB now. The ISFDB isn't reliable, but for this purpose that doesn't matter since it's just a pointer to finding reviews elsewhere. Then of course you have to find someone who has the 1953 issue of F&SF or SF Adventures, which is usually the hard part. Locus has tons of reviews for more recent work and should probably be mentioned for that reason.
• Finally, given that many editors are going to want to write biographical articles about sf writers, perhaps we should include bios and autobiographies after all? After all, particularly for pre-1960 writers, the social circles were small enough that you can go to Fred Pohl's The Way the Future Was for information about Kornbluth, and to Rich's bio of Kornbluth for information about Lowndes, and so on.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:51, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

All done. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 00:55, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

That was quick! I have a couple more biographies that are worth adding, now you've started that section: Fred Nadis, The Man From Mars, about Ray Palmer; Jeffrey Marks' Anthony Boucher; Amy Binns' Hidden Wyndham; and Philip Sherman's Leo Margulies. Perhaps as sf GAs and FAs are added, we can review their sources and see what else could be added to the page. Thanks for taking this on! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:55, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

And two more I just remembered; Kingsley Amis's New Maps of Hell, and Hell's Cartographers, a collection of excellent autobiographical essays by Silverberg, Knight, Pohl, Harrison, Aldiss, and one other writer I forget. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:23, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Added; hope the era division is correct. And yes I agree about sources from FAs/GAs. If anyone is interested in a similar list for fantasy – WP:FANTASYREFS – feel free to comment on/expand that too. Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 17:49, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Reviewers needed for SF topics at FA level

My Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Venus in fiction/archive1, ,is apparently not of interest to regular FAC contributors and is about to expire due to a lack of comments. Perhaps some of you here would like to stop by and say something. TIA! _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:50, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I should be able to take a look today. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Dune character image changes

There are discussions at:

• Talk:Duncan Idaho#Image
• Talk:Chani (character)#Image

Thanks.— TAnthony^Talk 17:05, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

RFC at Talk:Star Control

There is an RFC concerning external links from the article about the classic game Star Control. Participation is welcome. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:Peer review for Mars in fiction

I have opened a WP:Peer review request for Mars in fiction in preparation for WP:Featured article nomination, see Wikipedia:Peer review/Mars in fiction/archive1. Any and all feedback would be appreciated. TompaDompa (talk) 00:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)