Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #849862 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Science Fiction has proved to big, big office through the years with movies such as Star Wars and TV shows such as Dr Who bringing the genre to mainstream audiences. The Radio Times Guide to Science Fiction is as comprehensive a tour as you could want into the realms of the fantastic. Covering movies, TV and radio just about every futuristic adventure to ever hit the screens is covered her with entries on over 1,500 movies, 300 TV shows and eight decades worth of SF radio shows. There's plenty of information on actors, directors, writers and other creative types plus run downs of the top 100 people in SF, a guide to SF movie Web sites plenty of lovely illustrations and a few trivia and quizzes to test your knowledge. The entries are brisk and pacey, giving balanced opinion and criticism. Of course, it's all subjective and you will undoubtedly find yourself disagreeing with many of the comments, but it's all nicely laid out and comes at a good-value price... doing exactly what it says on the tin. --Jonathan Weir

Synopsis
A guide to science fiction movies, television and radio in one volume. The A-Z reference covers more than 1500 films from the silent era to the 21st century; more than 300 television series, serials and dramas since the 1940s; and eight decades of radio broadcasting.

Customer Reviews

Great combination of reference and entertainment
I was given this book for Christmas, and it's already getting dog-eared. Unlike most movie guides, it's not just about reviews. It's great fun. Tucked in among the reviews are wonderful little side-bars , such as "15 Great Titles, Shame About the Show" ("Bella Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" and "A Nymphoid Barbarian from Dinosaur Hell" are two of my favourites), or "13 Truly Terrible Films or Camp Classics" ("The Astro-Zombies", "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and "Cat-Women of the Moon" are one, two and three). There's also a running scifi trivia quiz (I didn't do badly. Shows how I spend my days!) and really good photos. I loved the photo-captions, too - witty, slick and informative.

The reviews were just what I needed, with useful ratings and informative summaries. Of course, these aren't in-depth critiques. In a guide of this kind, there's only so much space for any one review, but it's amazing how much information they pack in.

I've been a science fiction fan most of my life, and I've never come across a guide half as good as this. But I can see it's not for everyone. There's a mischievous sense of humour running through it, which I loved, but if you're a very serious sci-fi nerd, you might find it a bit flippant. It's also not a detailed study of every science fiction film and video ever made, but hey, how much space do you have on your bookshelf? And how many years in your life?

In short, I thought it was great. I'm just sorry that it stopped short at science fiction. I would have loved to see fantasy and horror included, though that would have to be a pretty heavy book.As it is, it's 500 pages of really useful information, plus stacks of entertainment.

Of no practical use
Shockingly badly edited by someone who has no other literary credits and admits in her introduction to having no detailed knowledge of science fiction, this may be one of the most error-ridden books on the genre ever published.

Basic factual mistakes abound, even on entries for such well-known, easily researchable titles as Red Dwarf, and plentiful typographical errors betray a severe lack of proof-reading. The selection of films and TV series is entirely random and many are listed under their US titles despite a claim that UK titles are used throughout. There is no information at all on different versions of films and no cross-referencing to sequels or remakes.

It is difficult to see who this could possibly be aimed at. It betrays all the hallmarks of having been cheaply and quickly thrown together to make a cynical profit and is entirely unreliable as a reference source.

very disappointing
I eagerly awaited the arrival of this book, taking the name "radio times" to be an indicator of quality. How wrong I was. The entries are plagued with typos (book put together too quickly? bad editing?) and are on occasion just plain wrong. The cost of the book is way too high (the "amazon" discount helps a lot here!). Items are given a "star" rating, but because items are judged by different reviewers, these appear to differ wildly, and end up as extremely unhelpful. Basically, the product just doesn't meet expectations.