The Ultimate SF resource

Maybe Grinwout's is a tad prejudiced about this one, having been the publisher of the first US edition back in the 70s, but The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Clute and Peter Nicholls is the most useful, and most entertaining, SFF resource in the galaxy. I remember reading every word of this as it came to us, not because I needed to (we were picking up the British edition) but because I couldn't stop myself. For instance, I discovered the legendary editor T O'Conor Sloane (and there is no period after the T, an affectation that my colleague, T O'Conor Sloane, III, carried on). Sloane the FIrst was the editor of Amazing Stories. Here's how he is described in the Encyclopedia:

Nearing his 80th year when he finally succeeded to the editorship, Sloane had a long white beard and an appropriately Rip Van Winkle-like approach to the job; though he worked for twelve years on SF Magazines, he stated publicly (in a 1929 Amazing editorial) his belief that Man would never achieve space travel. Amazing nevertheless bought the first stories of such writers as E E Smith, John W Campbell Jr and Jack Williamson... Sloane actually lost the manuscript of Campbell's first story, and returned Clifford D Simak's first submission after four years' silence, remarking that it was "a bit dated".

Priceless.

All SFF fans need this book in their library, end of story. But this being the age of the interwebs, and this being an encyclopedia of the fantastic, after all, you can now get it online. Bookmark this site, make it your homepage, follow it on Twitter or Facebook, but whatever you do, link up with it. You'll wonder how you lived without it till now.