Science Fiction Dictionary
January 26, 2021 5:50 AM   Subscribe

What is the history of chrononauts or hyperspace? What about fan fiction? Well, here’s the infodump.
A 2020 reboot of a project from the OED: The Science Fiction Dictionary.
posted by vacapinta (11 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I have been digging into this and talking about it with my spouse for like 20 min now. Thank you!!
posted by brainwane at 6:20 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


Cool. I think the U.S. Space Force should call their E-1s, E-2s, and E-3s spacehands instead of airmen.
posted by jabah at 6:21 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


On a related note, here's the (much larger) Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by John Clute, Dave Langford, and Peter Nicholls, and hosted by the British SF publisher Gollancz; it's the database of the third edition of Peter Nicholls' magisterial paper Encyclopedia of Science Fiction from 1977, revised in 1995 and finally outgrowing any possible attempt to turn it into wood pulp—at this time there are over 18,000 entries.
posted by cstross at 6:23 AM on January 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


OED SF citation project previously, back in 2008 when it was just getting going.
posted by zamboni at 7:26 AM on January 26, 2021


Gary Westfahl's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Film 1901–2016 was originally posted by me in 2002 but it's had a lot of updates since (the 2016 cut off was introduced so Westfahl could call it finished at some point).
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:33 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


The Wesley/Worf slash fanfiction sent in ‘just in case we had an interest’.

Link please.
posted by lock robster at 8:51 AM on January 26, 2021


I grok this.
posted by sammyo at 8:58 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


Wow, wow! Not so much a rabbithole to fall down as a sarlacc pit. Look, there are two separate entries for the adverb “robotically”!
adv. 1 in the manner of a robot; mechanically; without emotion (first attested 1924)

adv. 2 by means of a robot or robotics (first attested 1953)
The subject groupings are great too, with a really clear interface. If you look at “Communications” you can quickly contrast early neologisms (ultraphone, 1928) with later ones (commlink, 1974).

Lots and lots of happy skipping around to do here! Probably needs more drugs, though.
posted by miles per flower at 11:25 AM on January 26, 2021


What about the prize-winning game? Chrononauts "is a family of card games that simulates popular fictional ideas about how time travellers might alter history."
posted by Rash at 11:30 AM on January 26, 2021


Czech robot (1920 in R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots, a play by Karel Čapek (1890–1938), Czech author) < robota forced labour, drudgery.
According to Karel Čapek, the word was suggested to him by his brother Josef (1887–1945) as an alternative to his original intention of coining a word


That play premiered January 25th, 1921. Only a century ago.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:38 AM on January 26, 2021


"Probably needs more drugs, though."
No pangalactic gargle blaster
posted by olykate at 4:03 PM on January 26, 2021


« Older Are we really engineers?   |   shocked to death Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments