Site of the Week -- Aug. 30, 1999
he end of Back to the Future, Part III is just the
beginning for the Hill Valley Telegraph, a fan site that chronicles
the famous Back to the Future movie trilogy in minute detail.
The site is home to the Back to the Future fan club, a successor
to the official club and a backer of all things BTTFish. It opens with
an unnecessary splash page that leads into a newspaper-style news page.
The news follows the happenings of all the major--and some of the minor--characters in the movies, fanatically digging up briefs about Steven
Spielberg's doings, Michael J. Fox's Spin City sitcom, and even
Elisabeth Shue's recovery from a torn Achilles tendon.
Aside from the news page, the Telegraph also has many more goodies, like
stills of Eric Stoltz as the "original" Marty McFly, a short rumors page and
a detailed FAQ section. Finally, the Back to the Future, Part
IV area serves up lots of juicy (and controversial) rumors about a
possible sequel, passed on by the site's version of Deep Throat.
-- Kenneth Newquist
Site of the Week -- Aug. 23, 1999
ree Sci-Fi Classics, a site created by Blake Linton Wilfong (who
calls himself "The Wondersmith"), presents without charge 14 science fiction
stories now in the public domain, all originally published before 1920.
Wilfong also adds a pair of his own short-shorts to the selections.
Only four of the 12 authors featured are known primarily for
science fiction: Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Murray
Leinster. But the other eight are among the most renowned writers of the
last 250 years, including Hans Christian Andersen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard
Kipling, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, Mark Twain and Voltaire.
Saki's "Tobermory," surprisingly, is the most enjoyable story on the site.
It's a hysterically funny tale about what happens when a scientist
teaches a cat to talk. Voltaire's stories "Micromegas" and "Plato's
Dream" are witty challenges to both the secular and religious
philosophies of his time. And Wells' "A Dream of Armageddon" is a brilliant
drama about a man who has a strange dream of the future that seems all
too real. Most of the other stories are also enjoyable, and they give readers
some interesting insights into the early development of SF.
The downside to this site is that Wilfong has taken it upon himself to do some
editing, which he describes as minor. The most egregious example
of this is Twain's "From the
London Times of 1904," in which his changes "fix a plot flaw" and eliminate
one of the endings. Without being able compare these altered tales to the original versions,
it's impossible to tell what the real impact of Wilfong's changes is. But, aside from this
bizarre caveat, Free Sci-Fi Classics is a site well worth
visiting for readers interested in SF's origins.
-- Clinton Lawrence
Site of the Week -- Aug. 16, 1999
eon Genesis Evangelion is a complex and confusing anime series, even to fans who
have seen all of it. (Most in America probably haven't--the cinematic
series conclusions haven't been released on video in the U.S., though
"fansubs" are available.) The elliptical ending of the TV series
raised more questions than it answered, and even the films don't tie
things up particularly neatly.
Fortunately, there's a handy guide to the entire Evangelion
continuum available at Ikari Gendo's Ultimate Neon Genesis Evangelion FAQs Page,
where many of the series' most baffling
details are explained from the point of view of Ikari Gendo, one of
Evangelion's central characters. Spoilers abound as the author addresses the
movies, the TV series, the characters, and the antagonistic "Angels"
separately. The site cogently integrates information from a variety of sources to
explain confusing topics, including the Third Impact, the Sephiroth, the
movies' incestuous history, and director Hideaki Anno's troubled emotional
state throughout the project.
Like most of the many, many Evangelion sites out there, this one's crammed
with photos and links. Unlike its competitors, it doesn't have downloads,
screensavers, music files, or other toys; it's purely informational. But
the information is detailed, thoughtful, well-written, and generally
serious. (For a humorous look at Evangelion, "Gendo" offers a link to "my
idiot son's homepage," a silly, snide spoof by the same Web-author, in
which the series' often-whiny protagonist stumbles incoherently over his
own set of FAQs.) The pages are extremely long and the huge amount of
graphic material can make for lengthy download times, but to confused fans
who want more than the usual recycled character bios and episode summaries,
the wait is well worth it.
-- Tasha Robinson
