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Creative Writing & Genre Fiction

This guide offers resources for creative writers and information about the Library's genre fiction collections.

Identifying and Finding Stories

Most Comprehensive Sources:

 

If you know the specific source you want (novels, short fiction collections, films, tv programs, etc.), please use the Author or Title search functions in OneSearch Advanced Search)

 

 Contento, William G.  Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, Combined Edition

As of 26 January 2008, this index covers the contents of some 3,900 science fiction anthologies and single-author collections published before 1984, containing over 38,000 stories by 3,880 authors.  The Internet-based version, linked above, is a revised and expanded version of the two print editions in the Library's collections: Contento, William G.  Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections.  PS 374 .S35 C65 1978; and Contento, William G.  Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections, 1977-1983.  PS 374 .S35 C65 1978 suppl 1984.

Internet Speculative Fiction Database [ISFDB]

The ISFDB is an effort to catalog works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Now hosted by the Cushing Library Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection and the Institute for Scientific Computation, Texas A&M University, it links together various types of bibliographic data: author bibliographies, publication bibliographies, award listings, magazine content listings, anthology and collection content listings, yearly fiction indexes, and forthcoming books.

Locus Index to Science Fiction

The Locus Index to Science Fiction: 1984-1998 and its annual supplements for 1999-date, list published books (created from the monthly Books Received column in Locus Magazine) plus the contents of anthologies, single-author collections, and magazines.

Miller, Stephen T., and William G. Contento.  Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazine Index, 1890-2000

1st Floor Reference PN 3448.S45 M49  

A CD-ROM indexing the contents of more than 1,000 different magazines, 14,000 individual issues, 23,000 authors, 82,000 stories.

 

Other Useful Sources:

Barron, Neil.  Anatomy of Wonder 5: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction1st Floor Reference PN 3433.8 .A52 2004

Barron, Neil.  Fantasy and Horror : A Critical and Historical Guide to Literature, Illustration, Film, TV, Radio, and the Internet1st Floor Reference PN 56 .F367 1999

Both of Barron's guides provide annotated entries on texts, as well as on historical and critical works, works dealing with art and the media, with teaching, and with specialize library collections.

Bleiler, Everett F.  The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction.  PN 3435 .B55 1978

The first edition, entitled The Checklist of Fantastic Fiction, published in 1948, was one of the earliest attempts at a comprehensive listing of SF.

Bleiler, Everett F.  The Guide to Supernatural Fiction.  1st Floor Reference PN 56 .S8 B57 1983

Subtitled: "a full description of 1,175 books from 1750 to 1960, including ghost stories, weird fiction, stories of supernatural horror, fantasy, Gothic novels, occult fiction, and similar literature."

Bleiler, Everett F., & Richard J. Bleiler.  Science-Fiction, The Early Years.  PN 3448 .S45 B434 1990.

Subtitled: "a full description of more than 3,000 science-fiction stories from earliest times to the appearance of the genre magazines in 1930 : with author, title, and motif indexes."

Bleiler, Everett F., & Richard J. Bleiler.  Science-Fiction, The Gernsback Years.  PS 648 .S3 B57 1998.

Subtitled: "a complete coverage of the genre magazines ... from 1926 through 1936."

Brians, Paul.  Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction.

"This new edition of my comprehensive survey of fictional depictions in English of nuclear war and its aftermath is under development. The bibliography has been expanded with over 450 additional entries. The chapters of historical and critical discussion are essentially unchanged so far, but will be undergoing some revision in the coming months. "  Updated e-version of Brians' Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984.

Carter, Margaret L.  Realm of the Vampires.

Booklists, recommendations, and essays on the denizens of the night.

Clarke, I. F.  The Tale of the Future, from the Beginning to the Present Day.  PN 6014.2 .C44 1978  

Subtitled: "an annotated bibliography of those satires, ideal states, imaginary wars and invasions, coming catastrophes and end-of-the-world stories, political warnings and forecasts, inter-planetary voyages and scientific romances--all located in an imaginary future period--that have been published in the United Kingdom between 1644 and 1976."

Delahoyde, Michael A. "Vampire Bibliography." A short list of studies on vampires.

Duchamp, L. Timmel.  Science Fiction and Utopias by Women, 1818-1949: A Chronology.

Fang-tastic Fiction

"Do you want to read your paranormal book reviews in the context of their series? Are you interested in the violence, sensuality, and humor levels of paranormal series? You’ve come to the right place. On this blog, each book is reviewed within the blog entry for its series. When a new book is published, the series entry is updated to include that book. Each series is rated on a 1-5 scale for violence, sensuality, and humor."

Fantastic Fiction.  [UK]

Bibliographies on more than 10,000 authors, and more than 200,000 books with description, publication details, and often a cover picture.

Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Utopia

The Feminist SF site provides bibliographies of feminist science fiction, fantasy, and utopian novels, short stories, anthologies, and other writings, as well as reviews, bibliographies of literary criticism, research guides guides to teaching feminist SF, and information on the feminist SF community, and has been doing so since 1994.

The FictionMags Index

Indexes fiction-oriented magazines of all types, not just SF & F, by author, title, and magazine.  As of January 2011 it indexed nearly a third-of-a-million fiction pieces, more than 50,000 poems, and more than 210,000 non-fictin items by more than 67,000 authors, in nearly 50,000 issues of more than 3,000 different magazines.

Grand Comic Book Database

A volunteer-run effort to index all comics, including SF & F ones.  In addition to comics in English (40,000+ series, 292,000+ issues, 762,000+ stories), the GCD includes comics in Assamese, Bengali/Bangla, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Faeroese, Filipino/Pilipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Latin, Lithuanian, Maltese, Marathi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovenian, Sami (Lule), Sami (Northern), Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telegu, Tibetan, and Turkish.

Guide to Supernatural Fiction [Tartarus Press]

"We hope that this Guide will be of interest to connoisseurs of supernatural fiction. It is still a 'work in progress', but already contains bibliographical information on over 360 authors and editors of supernatural fiction. We are adding images of dustjackets as thumbnails with the bibliographical information, and those bordered in red/brown can be clicked on to provide a larger image. We hope to "upgrade" images over time, and welcome any scans. . . . Our definition of "supernatural" is a very catholic but inevitably subjective one, betraying our own interests and prejudices. Not that this means that we would recommend every author or book contained on the database. We have tried to include as much literature of the supernatural as we can (and therefore a great number of ghost stories), but we only skirt around the boundaries of fantasy, and science fiction is poorly represented. If there is a bias towards the macabre and weird genres, though, this reflects our own personal tastes.  We have not attempted to create complete author bibliographies, but include only those works which fall into our category of the 'supernatural'."

Moon - entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

 A linked description and bibliography of the uses of the moon in science fiction.

Negley, Glenn.  Utopian Literature : A Bibliography with a Supplementary Listing of Works Influential in Utopian Thought.

Nuclear Texts & Contexts. HX 806 .N4 1977 

"In 1998 a small number of scholars who met at the Modern Language Association national meeting organized a group called the International Society for the Study of Nuclear Texts & Contexts (ISSNTC). Besides small annual meetings of members thereafter and the maintenance of a mailing list for interested scholars, its main activity was the publication of a newsletter called Nuclear Texts & Contexts . Between 1998 and 1995, 12 issues of the newsletter appeared. At its height this newsletter had a circulation of over a hundred scholars in ten different countries who were interested in nuclear themes as reflected in fiction and the arts, and in the relationship of English and literary studies to nuclear issues generally. Provided here in Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf) are copies of the first 8 issues, which were published at Washington State University."

Ockerbloom, Mary Mark, ed.  Pre-1923 Utopias and Science Fiction by Women: A Reading List of Online Editions.

Reginald, R.  Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: A Checklist, 1700-1974; with Contemporary Science Fiction Authors II.  2v.  1st Floor Reference PN 3448 .S45 R42

Reginald, R.  Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: A Checklist, 1975-1991: A Bibliography of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Fiction Books and Nonfiction Monographs1st Floor Reference PN 3448 .S45 R4212 1992

Reginald's volumes provide biographical information on SF&F authors through the mid-1970s as well as bibliographies for those authors, and more, to 1991.

Sargent, Lyman Tower.  British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1975: An Annotated Bibliography. PR 149.U8 S27

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Book List Site

"This site is a comprehensive bibliography of science-fiction and fantasy authors and their books. The database also contains links to official and fan sites of various authors where they exist. Updated monthly with the latest books and new authors, this site tries to bring you the information you want in an easy to find manner."  If you want to know what SF/F/H books your favorite author has published, this is very handy and easy to use site.

SF Site: The Home Page for Science Fiction and Fantasy

"SF Site is composed of many pieces. Twice a month since July 1997, we have posted a mixture of book reviews, opinion pieces, author interviews, fiction excerpts, author and publisher reading lists and a variety of other features. At the same time, we've maintained a comprehensive list of links to author and fan tribute sites, SF conventions, SF TV and movies, magazines and e-zines, writer resources, publishers and small press sites and many other SF resources."

Uchronia: The Alternate History List

Uchronia "is an annoated bibliography of more than 3100 novels, stories, essays, and other printed material involving the 'what ifs' of history.  The genre has a variety of names, but it's best known as alternate history.  In an alternate history, one or more past events are changed and the subsequent effects on history somehow described."  Other names for alternate histories include: allohistory, counterfactuals, if-worlds, parallel worlds, what-if stories, abwegige geschichten, etc.  They include stories about "what if the Nazis won WWII" or "if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War" and often deal with what the world might have been like after the point of divergence from "true" history.  The lists are presented by author, anthologies, series, reference materials, foreign, diverence, oldest, bookstore (with links to Amazon.com), a cover gallery, links, and a link to the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History.