Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
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This is an exhaustive guide to science fiction from its origins among fantastic literature such as The Epic of Gilgamesh to the trends of today. It is no mean feat to condense all this into a mere 612 pages but Mammoth have managed it admirably. The nature of the genre is looked at and defined, and its main sub genres are discussed and neatly cross-referenced in the section on authors so people leafing through looking for another writer of Hard SF, Cyberpunk or Space Opera will be able to find out who else writes this type of novel. All the main writers are here with a bit about their work and a full bibliography and if films or TV are more your thing then there is plenty about this too - a listing of the most influential SF films and TV series and descriptions of them together with reasons for their success or failure. There is a section of the terms, themes and devices found in SF such as cryonics, virtual reality, the nature of a star and artificial intelligence and at the end a long and comprehensive index.

In my experience encyclopedias of this type are all too often too short, focus on certain things at the expense of others, over-illustrated or hard to use. This manages to be none of these things but that rara avis a genuinely useful, readable and user-friendly work. One to get for all those SF fans in your life this Christmas!

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