phemera is the classy word collectors use to refer to non-book, non-magazine printed material, and I've always loved collecting such items. Advertisements, posters, matchbooks—these simple items, once deemed utterly disposable, can nostalgically evoke entire eras in ways that even more complex artifacts cannot.
Surely one of the most wonderful classes of ephemera is trading cards, the non-sports variety. Most SF fans know of such famous sets as the Mars Attacks! one, with "shocking" illustrations that caused much controversy. But what other sets from the heyday of such cards—a decade roughly bounded by the years 1959 and 1969—can you summon up? If your failing memory needs jogging, visit Monster Cards of the 1950s and 1960s.
Here you'll find concise data on such well-distributed sets as "You'll Die Laughing," with its Jack Davis drawings, to such rarities as the science-fictional "Adventures of Captain Chapel," which only saw release through Mister Softee locations. Each set is represented by a few thumbnails of sample cards, fronts and backs and sometimes even the wrappers, but unfortunately the thumbnails are not enlargeable, and not every card is depicted. Still, the resolution is good enough to inspire much marveling. And you can even perform scientific studies, by, say, comparing the makeup jobs of the original Planet of the Apes actors—as featured on their card set—to that of the recent retread. Finally, a link to Good Stuff Cards sets you up to buy new sets and reproductions of some of the oldies you've been admiring.
All that's missing from this site is the gum!
— Paul Di Filippo
Site of the Week—December 10, 2001
cience fiction as a genre is an American invention. The legendary editor Hugo Gernback pulled together elements that already existed in such writers as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and from them distilled a new form of literature. Since the founding of Amazing magazine in 1928, many other countries have added their voices to the genre chorus, and what at one time belonged to but one country long ago become an international phenomenon. Many countries have reinterpreted science fiction for themselves, in turn energizing it for the rest of us.
Of all these varied nations, the one that has evolved to publish the largest-circulation SF magazine in the world is the People's Republic of China. The print version of its monthly fiction magazine Science Fiction World—published since 1979 in Chengdu, the capital city of the country's Sichuan Province—boasts a circulation of over 370,000 copies per issue, a figure which beats the readership of any other SF magazine many times over. In addition, the company also publishes two other periodicals—a media magazine titled Amazing Files and an SF magazine for children, Flying.
As one would expect of such a vast SF empire, the Web site that supports it is also vast. Science Fiction World contains not only a great deal of fiction, but also news, movie reviews, book reviews, games reviews, a bulletin board and more. As I reviewed the site in Chengdu with Web master Lu Wei and the rest of the staff, I realized that in the comprehensive range of content it offers readers, Science Fiction World could almost be considered a Chinese-language Science Fiction Weekly. For those who can read Chinese, the site is a window on another culture's take on SF. And even for those who can't decipher the details, the site is still fun to explore, its depth standing as further proof that SF belongs to the entire world.
— Scott Edelman
Site of the Week—December 3, 2001
he Prisoner is virtually unique in the history of television. In a genre that copies itself constantly, the show has resisted any attempt to duplicate it. Short-lived, with only 17 hard-hitting episodes, it challenged viewers and told a powerful story about individualism versus conformity. Its hero, the nameless Number Six, attempted to escape from the mysterious Village where he was imprisoned, while the mysterious people who kept him there tried to break his spirit and learn his motives for resigning from his job as a government spy.
Now RetroWeb Classic Television and webmaster Kipp Teague offer a glossy fan page about the 1967 British SF series, with episode summaries, photographs, links to other resources and lots of information on the Portmeirion Hotel in Wales where the series was filmed. Quotes from the series creator and star, Patrick McGoohan, offer insights into the show's many ambiguities. An essay called "What's It All About?" sifts through the extensive speculation and research that have surrounded The Prisoner since its first airing, bringing the theories together in one cohesive summary of the program's dominant symbols and themes.
The data on this page is very nearly exhaustive, with screenplay excerpts of lost scenes and photographs of a prototype of the deadly and mysterious Rover device which prevented Number Six's escape. It covers everything (except perhaps the The Prisoner graphic novels): guest stars, DVD releases, trivia ... even versions of episodes that were edited differently in North America than in the U.K. With so much information on offer, visitors can feel assured that they might succeed in knowing all of The Prisoner's secrets ... even if Number Two never could pry them loose.
— A.M. Dellamonica
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