ourteen-time Hugo award winner Michael Whelan offers visitors a chance to sample his fantasy- and SF-themed artwork on this official Web page. Known both for his original work and for book covers like that for Joan Vinge's The Snow Queen, Whelan uses this page as a showcase for his work and (to a lesser extent) an information site for aspiring artists.
Beautifully laid out and easy to access, the page features a gallery containing some of Whelan's best-known paintings, as well as a store that sells prints, originals and novelty items, including coffee cups and personal checks adorned with Whelan dragons. It also has a scant handful of links, most of them to the pages of SF authors.
Much of the content of this site is visual, naturally, but even so, one of its most delightful elements is its detailed biography of Michael Whelan, as well as an FAQ that talks about his methods of working and the artistic materials he prefers to use. These glimpses into the minutiae of a working artist's world are intriguing. Combined with the images of his work, they are inspirational, providing ample fuel for the imaginations of any young painters who dream of bringing their own SF visions to a wider and very appreciative audience.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—July 29, 2002
amingReport.com provides gamers with a steady stream of role-playing game news, commentary and gossip by successfully merging Slashdot's relentless pursuit of geek news with the comic-stack arguments of a thousand gaming stores.
The site's members, who submit stories to the editors for possible posting, generate much of the site's news. Home-page stories are posted daily and are then stored in an extensive archive that's browsable by lists of the "Top 25 Read Stories" and "Top 25 Commented Stories" as well as categories for all of the major gaming companies.
Much of the site's content focuses around Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, d20 and other role-playing games, but there's also news about collectible games (Star Wars TCG, HeroClix), strategy-war games (Lord of the Rings), board games (Risk 2210) and even electronic game aids (OpenRPG). "The Non-Gamer Report," written by Maddie, the wife of a gamer, and "Inside the Game Store" by the owner of someone crazy enough to run one, are two of the site's half-dozen or so specialty columns.
The discussion boards are more than just breeding grounds for d20 flame wars. Designers—both from Wizards of the Coast and other companies—frequently post, and one, Ryan Dancey, of Organized Play and Open Gaming License fame, even hosts his own forum, where he dissects d20.
— Ken Newquist
Site of the Week—July 22, 2002
uman efforts to explore space have created a rich and compelling history, one that is made complex not only by its tales of human courage and ingenuity, but by its extensive technical lore. Rocket specifications, launch histories, failed experiments and new achievements all form part of this exciting story, making for an intimidating body of data. How can someone new to the topic hope to sort through it all?
The answer is to let the Encyclopedia Astronautica do all the work. An exhaustive compendium of data on space-exploration efforts worldwide, it contains everything a researcher could want: astronaut biographies, comprehensive listings of spacecraft, a timeline of discoveries, flights and records set by explorers—even inventories of ship payloads for most spaceflights.
The challenge for any site containing so much data, of course, is in making it accessible to users. To that end, Encyclopedia Astronautica has a search feature, as well as an alphabetic listing of topics. It doesn't stop there, though, offering specialized indexes on rocketry, space programs and astronauts. Finally, its chronology goes back as far as 1911, and has a "This Day in Space History" feature that lets users track events on particular dates of interest.
While it does have a decent number of pictures, Encyclopedia Astronautica is a largely text-based site, with fewer images than a visitor might expect. The best place to see photographs is within the feature articles, which cover topics like superguns, an account of a Soviet Star Wars program, devices built by rocketry pioneer Robert H. Goddard and a listing of space missions that never went forward. These articles are laid out with a selection of relevant images and are cross-linked to other entries within the encyclopedia.
Finally—for anyone who isn't sated by the reams of information provided on this terrific site—the page offers links to late-breaking news stories and a number of recommended books.
— A.M. Dellamonica
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