[SFRA-L] the new SF Encyclopedia

[Easterbrook, Neil]

JJP--

I can't, of course, defend each and every entry in the SF Encyclopedia, old or new. Tho I do want to say I'm not one of the writers or part of the editorial team, so I have no investment in the project's status other than that of a scholar (and fan) who has benefited from the earlier editions.

The first and second editions have been almost (clearly almost, in yr friend's case) universally celebrated as one of the most essential, vital, and central contributions to sf *knowledge* (I really mean that word, rather than *scholarship*)--from the time it first appeared until now. I think in a published essay Rob Latham once called it something like the only truly indispensible work in our discipline. In a reasonably recent WorldCon panel organized by Cheryl Morgan, it was the one book assumed as the most important of the last 20 years, including every work of fiction.

Sorry that yr friend feels slighted, but John Clute, the author of his particular entry, is one of the best, if not the best, critics in the field.

They are accepting corrections and suggestions, I think, and at least from my experience, both professional and personal, they are perfectly willing to admit inadequacy and correct entries.

But of course a critic's job is to see things from a critic's perspective, not a novelist's.

--Neil



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