SFreaders.com

So you’ve found SFreaders.com, and you’re wondering just what the heck it’s all about. Let’s have a look at what it is and isn’t…

What SFreaders.com is…

This site focuses on science fiction literature of all shades, both modern and classic, with a strong emphasis on my favourite authors and their work. There is also a specific focus on short fiction, which I consider to be the bedrock of the science fiction genre, and which also happens to be a big favourite of mine.

My tastes range the spectrum from esoteric to well-known, from the guilty pleasures of the trashiest pulps of the 1920s and ’30s, to the headiest heights of the most literary SF and the latest cutting edge magazine SF, and from the hardest of “hard” SF, to sheer escapist space opera and space adventure fiction. So there should be a little something here for everybody.

This is a personal website, created by a fan (that’ll be me) with a life-long obsession with all things science fiction, not only in literature, but also in other media. It is built around what I myself like in the world of SF, and has been created for the sheer fun of it, not for any commercial gain.

I’d like the site to eventually become a larger, more detailed resource covering all aspects of SF literature. Although essentially an “enthusiast’s” website created for myself, I’m also hoping that the site might be of interest to other fans, both the dedicated SF reader, and the newcomer or casual reader who would like to find out more about SF literature and explore the genre in more detail.

A wide range of other topics are also open for discussion. Comics, film, television, music, computers and the internet, science, and history are all favourite subjects of mine, are also fair game for various posts and articles, and most of these topics have categories of their own. Indeed anything that tickles my fancy is ripe for discussion, and anything that doesn’t fit into the regular categories can be found under General. But SFreaders.com is first and foremost a science fiction literature blog/website, and the larger portion of postings will reflect that bias.

What SFreaders.com isn’t…

It is not a professional review or critic’s site. I’m not a professional critic or reviewer, and don’t want to be. I am, and will always remain, primarily a reader. There are other excellent sites that already do the critic thing far better than I ever could, and I have no intention of trying to reinvent the wheel. I will be doing reviews, but you won’t see any negative reviews here. I don’t read stuff that I don’t like, nor do I write about it, only what I’ve enjoyed. Life’s far too short.

It is not a mainstream “Top 20 Bestselling SF Novels” type of website. Amazon.com and others cover that area more than adequately. This site reflects my own admittedly wide-ranging tastes in SF. You’ll see some “stuff” here that you’re familiar with, and some that you’ve never heard of.

It is not a mainstream fantasy site. I absolutely detest the modern dominant strain of Tolkeinesque or Dungeons ‘n Dragons derivative fantasy, and avoid like the plague all but the best examples of the genre. SFreaders.com has a distinct shortage of elves, dragons, princesses, and young men on quests to win the princess’s hand and save the world from some nameless ancient evil. I’m sorry if this disappoints fans of this type of literature, but I really do find it (with a tiny number of notable exceptions) mind-numbingly puerile, boring and formulaic.

However, don’t despair! I do quite enjoy other types of fantasy, including older classic fantasy, dark fantasy, sword and sorcery, Young Adult fantasy and some of the weirder modern non-mainstream fantasy. So you will find a few fantasy reviews in among all the science fiction.

The Bottom Line…

Anything goes on this site, so long as I happen to like it. Science fiction or fantasy (with the occasional bit of horror/supernatural), comics, movies, TV, music and more, and no “Top Twenty Best-Sellers” or marketing hype here. It’s pure personal preference and guilty pleasures, so you’ll read about stuff that you’ll recognize and other stuff that you won’t find anywhere else.

So what’s everyone standing around waiting for? Get on in there, and Happy Browsing!