Book Resources

(updated 5 April 2002)

alt.pulp FAQ A good general introduction to the pulps.
Authors Index of the Ultimate Mystery Fiction Web Guide They've started updating the site again, so now I can include them in good conscience. A very good guide, perhaps living up to its name, to web sites on mystery authors.
Battle Aces An outstanding guide to the pulp character G-8.
NEW Black Mask Magazine A very worthy successor to the original.
* Brian Misiazsek's Introduction to the Pulps A guide to game mastering pulp adventures in the 1930s and 1940s. It may sound strange, but games players often provide the best sort of information and research into a time or place or thing, and this is definitely the case here.
Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events Pre-1620 to 1920 The chronology is actually not as brief as it could be, and ends up being rather informative.
British Juvenile Story Papers and Pocket Libraries Index A wonderful index of what stories appeared when in what British magazines. Essential if you're doing research into this sort of thing.
The British Library The library of Great Britain. Although they only have a catalogue, I find I use it surprisingly often for research. What that says about me, I don't know.
* A Celebration of Women Writers An excellent and quite thorough guide to information on the Web on writers who happen to be women. And they don't cover just America and England; they are global in their coverage.
Collecting Books and Magazines A very good Australian site on Aussie (and otherwise) children's books and their authors.
* Crockett Johnson's Cartoon Characters Crockett Johnson is mostly forgotten about today but during his time he was a cartoonist par excellance. Johnson did Harold and the Giant Purple Crayon (remember that one?) and Barnaby, a sublime comic strip about a young boy and his cigar-smoking guardian angel. This site is exactly the sort of thing the Web is good for: an excellent, illustrated introduction to an unjustly-forgotten creator.
NEW Cthulhu A Lego Cthulhu. I like it.
* The Difference Dictionary is a lot of fun. It's meant as a supplement to William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine, one of the primal steampunk texts. And it works very well on that level. But it also functions quite nicely as a basic guide to some of the more interesting people, ideas, and things of the Victorian era.
NEW * Dr. Hermes' Reviews Very interesting reviews of classic pulp and mystery novels.
E.E. "Doc" Smith A nice guide to Smith's work, with cover images and plot summaries.
* The Eldritch Dark is a model for what fan sites should be. Really, just an all-around outstanding site on the singular Clark Ashton Smith.
Fading Shadows, Inc. A publisher of some nice pulp reprints and magazines.
* Fantastic Victoriana My own page, listing over 400 characters and things who were in fantastic, mysterious, and/or adventurous Victoriana (and the occasional Edwardiana). I concentrate on the less-known characters--not Holmes and Wells' Martians, but Verne's Robur, dime novel characters like Frank Reade, and penny dreadful characters like Broad Arrow Jack. There is nowhere else on the Web to find this sort of information about as wide a range of characters and books; I say this without false modesty but with what I think is a well-deserved sense of pride.
Fantasy Encyclopedia Updates John Clute wrote the wonderful The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. These are the updates and corrections to that.
* Female Detectives in UK Fiction 1850-1900 Chris Willis' excellent site on female British detectives during the Victorian era. One of the primary online texts for researchers.
French Science Fiction The home site for Jean-Marc Lofficier's outstanding new book on French SF and Pulps, French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror & Pulp Fiction.
* Galactic Central If you are doing research on old magazines this is the first place to go. Phil Stephenson-Payne has done an outstanding job compiling this and deserves every compliment we can send him.
* Gaslight is, as far as fantastic Victoriana is concerned, the place on the Web to go. There are stories available here that simply can't be found anywhere else, and are very hard to come by in real life. We all owe them a debt of thanks. They also have an American Branch which is more than just a mirror site.
* Hero Pulps (II) A really good set of resources and information on the pulps.
Heroes of the Spaceways A good site for information on Dan Dare, Jet Ace Logan, Space Kingley, Captains Condor and Valiant, Rick Random, and various other Space Heroes.
The Holloway Pages Goodly amounts of information on Doc Savage, The Shadow, John Carter, Flash Gordon, G-8, Sheena, and Ka-Zar.
House of Beadle & Adams Online Most of the text of the book, online. You won't do better than this for information on B&A. Thank you, Northern Illinois University. Thank you.
* The H. P. Lovecraft Archive Another good Lovecraft resource.
Hyperarts Pynchon Pages The best source on the 'Net for information and criticism on Pynchon, that most curious of authors.
* Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections A superb source for finding out where your favorite stories and authors have appeared.
Internet Speculative Fiction Database Another good source for finding out where your favorite authors and stories have appeared.
NEW Invisible Library "The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books." Worth taking a look at.
Jim and Julie Rhodes Doc Savage Page A very lengthy list of links to Doc Savage and other pulp-related sites.
NEW John Carter of Mars About time the Virginian had his own site, wouldn't you say?
The Linkoping Science Fiction and Fantasy Archive Information on and about science fiction and fantasy books, gathered from the wide reaches of the 'Net and made available to you! (Not, it should be mentioned, updated all that often, I think)
The Literary Gothic The best guide on the 'Net to Gothic literature.
The Locus Index to Science Fiction A great index for finding out what's been published and where.
The L-Space Web The essential online reference source for All Things Terry Pratchett. Pratchett is a funny, funny writer, and his Discworld books are the most amusing work in fantasy in the last 40 years. However, it hasn't been updated in a good long while (not unlike this site, until recently) and so in danger of falling out of date.
Miscellaneous Magazines Another excellent index to which authors and stories appeared in which magazines and when.
Miskatonic University A site "dedicated to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Robert W. Chambers, Edgar Allen Poe, and others of the arcane tradition."
* The 'Net Alternate History List An outstanding list of Alternate History books and authors. The best site on the Internet for information about contrahistory books.
The NetherReal. One of the better Lovecraft sites out there.
New Magnet Library Syracuse University's wonderful collection of cover images from the dime novel New Magnet Library, which was the home to, among others, Nick Carter.
The Official Home of Zorro Ignore that awful Antonio Banderas movie. Zorro is one of the enduring pulp archetypes, and not even mediocre film treatments can change that. This page is a very nice guide to his diegetical history and his real history.
The Page of Fu Manchu A wonderful site for finding information on The Insidious Doctor and his imitators.
NEW The People of Arkham An entertaining pisstake on Lovecraft's oeuvre.
NEW Perry Rhodan A very good resource for that singular success story, Perry Rhodan.
NEW * Phil Masters' Steampunk Links Online steampunk resources from the redoubtable Mr. Masters.
* Photo Album An amazing collection of cover images from various pulps.
NEW Prehistoric Fiction A very nice site on the literary genre.
Pulp Adventures A publisher of and store for pulp reprints and pulp magazines.
* Pulp and Adventure Heroes of the Pre-War Years I'm tooting my own horn, but this is one of the best sites anywhere for information on pulp characters apart from the top eight, the Doc Savages and Shadows and Spiders, etc. There's lots of information on them, but where are you going to go for information about Dorus Noel or Ted Scott or Kioga? This site has nearly 1700 (yes, you read that correctly--1700) descriptive listings for pulp, mystery, adventure, sf, boys' fiction, radio, movie, and comic strip characters from (roughly) 1902 to 1939. I cover characters from around the world, and have information that is not available anywhere else--not in print and not in English.
Pulp Heroes A nice site on Canadian pulp heroes.
* The Pulps Page A good page, with both essays and links, on the pulps.
Pulp Title Index An index of pulp magazines and when they were published, along with some market data. Of limited use, but invaluable if you need this sort of information.
Ralan's Webstravaganza A great resource for information on where to submit sf writing to.
RARA-AVIS Archive Search RARA-AVIS is a very good mailing list devoted to hardboiled and noir fiction. This site allows you to search the archives, which is a handy research tool. (The folks there know what they're talking about, and you can learn a lot from reading some of the discussions)
The Recommended Fantasy Author List A vast list of what fantasy authors to read, and why, and with links to relevant web pages. I should add, though, that it hasn't been updated in some months, which is a troubling development.
Science Fiction Encyclopedia Update John Clute wrote the wonderful The Science Fiction Encyclopedia. These are the updates and corrections to that.
* Series Book Magazine Index A very useful database; "a subject index of hobby journals which feature articles on juvenile series books."
SFF Net What used to be a very nice resource for science fiction resources and fandom on the Web, but whose utility has been marred by a lack of updates or even attention from its owners.
* Sherlock Holmes on the Net The ne plus ultra of Holmesian web sites.
Solar Guard Academy A site concentrating on the great science fiction heroes of the 1950s, from Rocky Jones (ack) to Captain Video.
Soon's Historical Fiction Site A good site on historical fiction. Very good site, in fact.
NEW Steampunk A decent attempt at summarizing the genre.
NEW * Terry Pratchett Books The official site of our greatest living humorist.
* The Thrilling Detective Web Site The best site on the 'Net for information on private eyes. Really, a very good piece of work.
Twists, Slugs and Roscoes "A glossary of hardboiled slang." Very much fun, it is.
The Vintage Library: Pulp Fiction Central It's a store, with few if any freebies, but it still offers you a good introduction to pulp fiction.
The Weird Fiction Research Library A glossary of Cthulhu Mythos terms and a searchable database of horror/weird fiction books published since 1991.
When the Stars are Right A Lovecraftian timeline.
The Wold Newton Universe It's like this. Philip Jose Farmer, in a stroke of inspiration, decided that Sherlock Holmes and the Shadow and Tarzan and Nero Wolfe and all the rest of the pulp and mystery and science fictiona and fantasy characters that we loved as children were all related. And so Farmer wrote a couple of books proving this, and drew up a family tree as supporting evidence. This web page is a very good guide to Farmer's work on this. (Tell Win I said "hi!")