Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

The Surf In Sci-Fi, But No Multi In The Media

A Review of Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Nathan Bruinooge

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has long been the standard-setter in

science

fiction reference; Grolier’s now brings us a multimedia CDROM with the same

material,

plus much more. Like the book form of the Encyclopedia , the CDROM provides

archives

of 300 science fiction books, old and new. It adds a number of images,

sounds, films,

hypertext, and search mechanisms–standard fare for multimedia encyclopedias.

Grolier’s divides the CDROM into helpful sections, though often it’s the same

information

being accessed via different routes. The Themes section contains articles,

media clips,

and links on subjects like ‘Space,’ ‘Life Forms,’ and ‘Mind & Spirit.’ The

Book Browser

provides easy access to a host of science fiction books, author information,

summaries,

and hypertext links.

The Time Machine is a detailed, graphical timeline of

the history

of science fiction, with, of course, plenty of links to other information on

the disk.

The Gallery is an archive of the (otherwise scattered) multimedia clips.

Finally,

there’s a detailed Word Search function and a Collections menu that allows

you to store

customized groups of articles and media information.

So why bother with the CDROM–what does it provide that the book won’t or

can’t? As with

the general multimedia encyclopedias, the answer boils down to one thing:

hypertext.

There’s nothing like following a trail from a familiar book, via link to its

author, to

someone more obscure, and on to undiscovered (and fascinating) country, at

the click of

a mouse. For a sci-fi fan, browsing this encyclopedia is like surfing the

‘Net; there’s

a seemingly infinite amount of material . . .

. . . as long as you’re talking about words. When it comes to the actual

multis of

media, this CDROM is thoroughly disappointing. Photographs of book covers

and authors

are numerous, but not particularly unusual–we’d expect that sort of thing

from a bound

encylopedia anyway.

The sound and Quicktime movie clips are a decidedly

uneven

and haphazard bunch of bites, ranging from the mildly interesting to the

inane. There’s

a disproportionate number of clips from what few (relatively obscure) science

fiction

authors Grolier’s could convince to chatter in the front of a camera or tape

recorder for

awhile. Meanwhile, more significant authors who normally aren’t media shy

are rarely

heard or seen, multimedia wise–Bradbury and Asimov are two examples.

Multimedia

encyclopedias have a long way to go before their multimedia information

becomes much

more than novelty, and this CDROM is no exception.

Visually, there’s some very attractive, surreal background art for the

various screens.

The interface is intuitive and elegant–it shouldn’t take long for anyone to

find

whatever information they’re looking for. In case anyone does have trouble,

there are

detailed help files. There are no sound effects for events on the interface

itself, but

I, for one, found this refreshing. I was a little disappointed with the

smoothness and

speed from screen to screen–I was running the program by itself in Win95

with 12mb of

RAM, and there was still a big of lag when switching between the major

sections or calling

up media clips.

Overall, this encyclopedia is a good quality program in a genre (multimedia

encyclopedias)

that is still finding its feet.

School House Scorecard

Product:	Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
Company:	Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. 90 Sherman Turnpike Danbury, CT 06816 Phone: 203-797-35350

Cost:

Not Available

486dx/33 or better CPU,

Windows 3.1 (DOS version available),
MS-DOS 5.0 or better, 4 MB RAM, SVGA Display,
CD-ROM Drive and 3 MB Hard drive space.