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The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction was edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls. It costs 45 UK pounds in hardback and is published by Orbit. The Blue Book, as I shall call it, doesn't really need a review. It needs statistics. It has 1370 pages, 1.2 million words, and 4300 entries. And that is all I can say about it. It has everything I never needed to know. The nationality of the last author in the book is Polish (not Hungarian as I thought). If the Blue Book has any faults it is that it takes itself too seriously. I would like to have seen more cross referencing of science fiction terms. There is the obligatory entry on time travel, hyper space, and so on, but less well-know terms such as "Slans" were by passed. Comics and fantasy novelists are also left out. The deciding factor of whether you should get this is the price. 45 pounds is a hell of a lot for any book. But if you do think you can afford it then you will be getting an awful lot of information for your money. This book has no pictures. (The CD Rom editions are not yet published at the time of writing but thanks to the wonderous time travel effects of electronic messaging it might be available when you read this.) Adams, Douglas Noel has a full column on page 5.