Site of the Week -- Sept. 19, 2000
ene Roddenberry's Andromeda begins syndicated play the week of Oct. 2, 2000, and it already has science fiction fans speculating, criticizing and anticipating. The show stars Kevin Sorbo as Dylan Hunt, Lisa Ryder as Beka Valentine and Keith Hamilton Cobb as Tyr Anasazi. The story begins with Hunt awakening from suspended animation. A relic from pre-stellar civil war times, Hunt turns the mercenaries who awakened him into a new crew and continues his duties as a protector of the splintered Commonwealth.
Fan sites for the show have already sprung up, and one of the best is SlipstreamWeb. The site is information-heavy, and provides access to official press releases, episode guides and news about the stars. SlipstreamWeb's information is augmented by a thorough system of links to the official Andromeda Web site, to the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) and to other news sites.
SlipstreamWeb depends on fans submitting leads and stories, and the site's creators do an excellent job of giving credit to the folks who contribute stories. Good stories, rapid updates and an active community of fans make SlipstreamWeb worth a look.
-- Jesse Decker
Site of the Week -- Sept. 11, 2000
ollywood has gotten a lot of mileage out of Philip K. Dick's twisted mind.
The reality-questioning science fiction legend inspired the classic Blade Runner (based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) as well as the not-so-classic but still entertaining Total Recall (based on "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale").
philipKdick.com is dedicated to keeping the deceased author's memory alive, and it does so with an extensive site that is as quirky as its namesake. It has all the things one expects from an author fan site: a book list with reviews, an active discussion board, archived author interviews, artwork, radio clips in RealAudio format and a fanzine.
It also has some unexpected features, like its news section. There's the standard news about PDK-related releases and happenings, but what's really fun are the articles "plucked from the headlines." These are stories weird or cool enough to have been written by Dick himself, such as one describing a gigantic ant colony invading southern California, or another reporting on robots that create and assemble other robots.
-- Kenneth Newquist
Site of the Week -- September 4, 2000
ime~Gen is a fictional universe brought to life in 1969 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg in her story "Operation High Time," (published in If). The following series of books by Lichtenberg and another author, Jean Lorrah, depicts a world in which humanity has split into two sub-species: Sime, who at puberty develop tentacles that they use to drain the life force from the remainder, known as Gen. This unstable state of affairs engenders slavery, betrayal, raids, planet-wide war and a wealth of doomed passion.
The sprawling Sime~Gen site is kept current by Lichtenberg, Lorrah and a legion of fans. It provides the complete text of the first book in the series (long out of print) plus much more fiction set in the universe, some of it written by fans.
In addition, the site offers an extensive writing workshop. The writers have strong connections to Star Trek fandom and romance writing--the romance section provides chats with writers, reviews and so on. Other sections include a marketplace that mainly supports the numerous newsletters devoted to Sime~Gen; a book review section; a gallery of related amateur artwork; links to costuming sites, SF conventions and other topics of interest; much background about the universe and the usual bulletin boards, Web rings and listservs.
Despite a few broken links, the site provides a wonderful sense of community and is overflowing with resources for fans and fledgling writers.
-- Blaise Selby
