Anyone Ever Heard of This Science Fiction Reference Book?
By John DeNardo |
Monday, May 18th, 2009 at
12:17 am
John Dunne wrote us asking is any of our readers have ever heard of this science fiction reference book:
I used to own a book, non-fiction, written by a bunch of SF fans who worked at a bookstore. The book, most likely published in either the late 70s or very early 80s (because I bought it no later than 1982) was primarily a directory of author descriptions: who the author was, the type of works the author wrote, both sub-genre and major novels the author had had published in his/her career, and a feature for every author that started, “If you like so-and-so, try…” There was also a listing of 50 SF novels the authors considered “must reads” that was very broad in terms of the sub-genres of SF. Now if anyone can remember the title so I can try to rebuy this book that would be great. But what I’m really interested in is trying to find a website based on the “If you like…” idea. The listing of 50 novels, if it’s also online, would be great as well.
Any ideas?
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Filed under: Books
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I used to have a book called Who’s Who in Science Fiction, but can’t find it right now. Found it on E-bay – it’s by Brian Ash. It was written in the UK in the 70s. I remember the lists of favourite stories and novels by author. Don’t know if this is the book you’re looking for, but it’s the first one I thought of. Found it here: http://www.amazon.ca/Whos-Who-Science-Fiction-Brian/dp/0722112351/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242628185&sr=8-7&tag=sfsi0c-20
Seems to be a hardcover version, too.
Hope this is of some help.
BJ
It definitely sounds like the “Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction” (1979) [266 pages] by Baird Searles & Martin Last & Beth Meacham & Michael Franklin, or the companion volume “Reader’s Guide to Fantasy (1982) [217 pages] by Baird Searles & Beth Meacham & Michael Franklin.
It famously had the “If you like X you should try Y” for all their author descriptions.
I think you mean the Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy, published in 1989 by … gosh, Bloomsbury. The ‘author’ was M.H. Zool, a pseudonym for a number of members of Oxford University’s Speculative Fiction Group, usually known as OUSFG.
And why it is I always spot the salient information … no later than 1982, which counts out the Bloomsbury Guide … when I’ve finished posting.
Still, it would be interesting to see M.H. Zool’s work resurface.
John Dunne here (aka JDsg); thanks to John DeNardo for the posting of this question for me and the other links he sent via e-mail. Those were very interesting. DeadParrot has the answer; as soon as I saw Baird Searles name I knew that was the book. I confirmed it here: http://www.amazon.com/Readers-Guide-Science-Fiction/dp/B001U8XOWC/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242647923&sr=8-14&tag=sfsi0c-20 . Now to see if I can hunt down a copy locally.
Thanks everyone!
Another case solved by the knowledgeable readers of SF Signal!
(If only I was more knowledgeable — I own that book…it’s somewhere…and it didn’t spring to my enfeebled mind at all.)
Searles et al also wrote a companion book, A Reader’s Guide to Fantasy, which is just as useful.