Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction/References

A list of SF references along with their availability on the Internet Archive's Open Library, the Wikipedia Library and other sources. (Note: Wikipedia Library links below are freely accessible; no publisher-specific approval needed). Some sources may also be available through Z-library.

A similar list for fantasy is at WP:FANTASYREFS.

Literature
""In the early 1970s anybody interested in the history and criticism of sf could have found very little to read on the subject. Now there is far too much to cope with, and the difficulty is in locating what might be available and interesting.""

- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Author biographies
Early SF

Pulp era

Golden Age

New Wave

Post-1980 Note: For pre-1960 writers, the social circles were small enough that you can go to Fred Pohl's The Way the Future Was for information about Kornbluth, and to Rich's bio of Kornbluth for information about Lowndes, and so on.

Finding reviews

 * Some websites to look at are Locus, Tor.com, Strange Horizons.
 * The ISFDB lists reviews from magazines such as F&SF. These are sometimes available on WP:TWL or archive.org; if not, try WP:RX.
 * Google Scholar and WP:TWL can point you to reviews in journals such as Extrapolation, Foundation, Science Fiction Studies, and Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.
 * Check in the books linked above, in particular In Search of Wonder, The Issue at Hand and More Issues at Hand for reviews of old short stories, and Magill's Guide and Survey for older novels.

Bibliographies

 * Galactic Central is a reliable source for bibliographic data and includes the Contento indexes.
 * The ISFDB is not a reliable source to cite in FAs, per some FAC review discussions, though it's a great place to find information that can be verified elsewhere.

Fannish references
The professional and fannish science fiction and fantasy communities create some unique types of references that can be considered for citation purposes. General descriptions are provided here, with a list of some specific publications that are known to be reliable listed below that. Note that the categories of publication below include a full range of quality in execution; any publication must be considered on its own merits before being used in a citation.

Fanzines
Some say that science fiction fandom as it exists today was created in the letter columns of pulp magazines. Fans who first exchanged ideas that way went on to establish fanzines and Amateur press associations for trading such zines amongst each other. There continues a strong tradition of fan writing, fan editing, and fan illustration, recognized by the Hugo Awards for Best Fan Writer, Best Fanzine, and Best Fan Artist, as well as the Nova Awards for the same categories, specific to British and Irish sf fanzines.

Some fanzines are personal publications that are similar to blogs and do not generally make reliable, verifiable references. Other fanzines have a well-established publication history and are managed with an editorial model comparable to that of a professional magazine or academic journal. These non-profit publications can include articles and letters by professional writers and both pro and amateur historians in the field. They can be rich sources for well-researched articles about people, places, events, organizations, literary works, art, film and tv.

eFanzines.com is probably the largest online archive of fanzines, but there are other fanzine websites, and also many collectors and some libraries and universities with physical collections.

Convention publications
Science Fiction conventions that are large enough to have a Publications department usually produce an annual publication, called a Souvenir Book, Program Book or Program. These books will include biographical profiles of the convention's Guests of Honor and may also contain bibliographies and interviews. Sometimes the biography is provided by the guest or their publisher; this is marketing material such as might appear on a personal or publisher website and should be treated accordingly. Often, however, convention publication editors solicit biographical essays from professional friends and associates of the guests. If a biographical article has the byline of a well-established fanwriter, editor, or professional author, it is a verifiable reference comparable to a guest introduction in a published volume of someone's collected work. Similarly an interview published in a convention program book is as verifiable as one in a fanzine, magazine, or professional website, as long as the name of the interviewer, the program book Editor or the head of Publications is given somewhere in the printed publication.

SF Fanhistorical reference texts
Over the years several fan writers have established themselves as dedicated fan historians, documenting the history of the genre. Texts from this fannish activity that make useful references include the following: