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Great Science-Fiction
& Fantasy Works

science-fiction & fantasy literature:
a critical list with discussions

Some Other Science-Fiction & Fantasy OnLine Resources

"'Sit and be welcome, old man. You have the look of a Seeker.
I, Si-Lun, have sought somewhat myself, and have a feeling for the craft.'"

--The Seekers of Shar-Nun,
Ardath Mayhar



This page is not--nor is it intended to be--a set of links to most or all useful or interesting web sites related to speculative fiction: there are web sites whose whole business is to assemble (and keep current) such lists, a task beyond my abilities and my interests--though many of those link-collection sites now appear to be dead or dying. (I do have, on another page of this site, a very short list of the crème de la crème of general science-fiction, fantasy, and general-literature data resources.)

What this is is a set of links to all those sites known to me that link to this one. The theory here is that a site that has seen fit to provide a link to this site has a higher than average chance of being relevant to the interests of persons visiting here.

(I say "all" sites, but that's not so: I do not here list pages from the countless sites that are clones of either the Open Directory or Wikipedia, nor from sites that are just spammy link collections garnered from a search engine, nor from sites that fake content by "framing" other sites' content--see the discussions farther below. Moreover, I'm almost certainly missing many: Yahoo tells me that there are over five thousand pages linking to this site, and even subtracting my own internal links and such garbage as just discussed, that's a lot of links.)

Also, it is simply internet good manners to provide "reciprocal" links to sites that link to one's own; but I have not knowingly linked to any "web farms" or like sorts of places that exist primarily to exchange links, rather than to provide content, nor to any sites that mandate the mechanical form of a return link, such as a particular banner or graphic.

There are three classes of sites that will have links to any given other site: search engines, web directories, and actual personal (or corporate) web sites. A search engine, such as Google, automatically indexes web pages and reports back to you with a supposedly relevant list (ok, stop laughing) when you do a particular search; a web directory is usually human-made, and is a hierarchical structure that points to web sites of interest in categories assigned by the directory makers; other sites link as seems appropriate to their operators.

Though there are apparently many, many "web directories" out there--several hundred at least--the vast majority of them actually just parrot (presumably with permission) the listings of the Open Directory (dmoz.org), so I don't separately list those hundreds of "web directories" that are clones of that site. The Open Directory page that lists this site right now (I have asked for a move to a more descriptive catagory) has the structure Arts/Literature/Genres/Science_Fiction/Reviews, and any other directory with that same hierarchy or one much like it is a dmoz subscriber (a category that includes all the big names, including the Big G, Google itself).

Another "web directory", Geometry, essentially just puts a frame around others' web pages, including many--far too many to list--from this site. And then there are raw spam pages; the operators of such sites want only to bring visitors, in the hope that they will thereby get clicks on ads held on those pages, so they do not construct real pages but simply scoop up (typically by stealing results from search engines) snippets from any and every page their automated software can find relative to some arbitrary term, and present no real content whatever. Obviously, I do not (knowingly) link to any of those.

Beyond search engines and web directories, though, are "real" web sites. There is a myriad of such sites relating, with varying degrees of relevance, to science fiction and fantasy: any search engine will provide you with vastly more possibilities than you will be able to look through even in a very long night of diligent work (I know that well).

I have, for convenience of presentation, tried to sort these links into categories, though that has been difficult. At the top level, I have tried to separate them into institutional and personal pages, though some "institutions" are those of single individuals and some "personal" pages are enterprising resources on their own. The personal pages I have further subdivided into those dealing wholly with speculative fiction and more general ones, and I have pulled blogs and link aggregators out into categories of their own (under the heading "Journals"). All in all, it's not a rigorous system, but I think it helpful.

I have had to give up listing and linking to forum postings, as they have grown to unmanageable numbers (and also tend to disappear or get new URLs rather frequently.) So far, I am still listing and linking blogs, though those, too, are getting up there in numbers; but I do like to reciprocate folk kind enough to link to this site, and do consider that such pages have an above-average chance of being of interest to visitors here.

Within each type, I have listed these links in alphabetical order by site name (omitting "the" or "a/an"); personal pages are indexed by the owner's last name (where I can determine it). That is not a very fair way to do things, but I could think of no other fairer.

Each link takes you to the front page of the site in question; beneath that link is a link to the site's page where the actual link to here appears (those are not always obvious, being sometimes hidden behind anything from a remark to a mere numeral, but they're there--I check).

Here are the sites; if you know of any others, please email me with the particulars.



Institutional Sites

Science-Fiction/Fantasy Oriented

General


Personal Sites

Personal Pages

Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy-Oriented
(link page, not necessarily entire site)

Not Necessarily Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy-Related

Journals

Blogs

Link Aggregators

(Links to Google whole-domain searches no longer seem to be returning all results, as they formerly did--in fact, returning just a few--but I am leaving these links "as is" because Google changes methodology more often than they change their socks.

Newly Discovered Links Not Yet Categorized




You loaded this page on Sunday, 5 July 2009, at 00:44 GMT
it was last modified on Monday, 15 September 2008, at 06:17 GMT


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Site Directory:

 The site's Front Page


(essential one-time reading)		 Introductory Material:
    Welcome:
 a quick site overview and some mechanical details
    Apologia:
 the criteria used to make these lists
      (A long page, so also available in two parts for those with slow internet connections.)
            · Apologia: Part 1
            · Apologia: Part 2
    Site Organization:
 what's where, and why
 

(the heart of the site)		 The Authors:
    Author List
 (just a lightly annotated list of the authors here--not the best place to start)
    Master Authors/Books List
 (the centrum of this site, but a big page--there are alpha subpages available)
    A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
    Specialty Lists:
 several author "sub-lists" (such as the 5-star greats)
    Author Links:
 links to useful external pages or sites for each listed author
    More Books:
 yet-unread candidate books by authors already in these lists
    Other Candidates:
 authors, and books, that--pending actual reading--seem likely candidates for these lists
 

(typically gotten to
by author)		 The Books:
    All Listed Science Fiction & Fantasy Books
 (a long file to download)
    Preferred Editions:
 for those books having such (a work in progress)
    The Other Books:
 all cited books not in the master fiction list, collected in one place
    Overlooked Gems of Science Fiction & Fantasy:
 wonderful works sadly under-known
    Light-Hearted Science-Fiction & Fantasy:
 there's more than you might think
    Religiously Themed Science Fiction & Fantasy:
 something the field handles wonderful well
    Science Fiction & Fantasy For Younger Readers:
 a selection from these lists of appropriate works
    100 Great Works of Science Fiction & Fantasy:
 using an expansive definition of "works"
 

(new, used--find any book, anywhere in the world) 		About Buying Books From Here:
    Buying Books New:
 · about buying books from Amazon
 · searching for new books at any Amazon division
 · international book-buying considerations
    Buying Books Used:
 searching for used books anywhere in the world
    Our Speculative-Fiction "General Store":
    About the Science-Fiction Book Club:
 info & online signup


(often the most interesting part of any site)		 Miscellaneous Topics & Info:
    Musings:
 an ever-growing collection of, yes, musings
    Obiter Dicta:
 collected miscellaneous
    "That Other Genre":
 crime/mystery fiction
    Science-Fiction & Fantasy Art and Illustration:
 online galleries of diverse works
    Other Sites:
 sites that have noticed this one
    The English Language:
 a few thoughts on its modern rape
    Scumware!
 read this if nothing else whatever
    Change Log
 what was done when
    Your Host:
 a comically little about me
    Donate:
 you can help support this site
    Comments:
 some things said about this site by others
 

(on- or off-topic, there's a forum here for you) 		The Discussion Forums on This Site:
    The Forums:
 the forums "front page", with a menu of forums--or jump to one direct:

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