New Online Research Tool: “Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction”

From The New York Times:

“Warp speed” may be a term of the moment, thanks to the federal coronavirus vaccine program. But it’s also one with a history — which goes back farther than “Star Trek,” to a forgotten 1952 science fiction story in the pulp magazine Imagination.

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A historical dictionary devoted to the history of something as future-oriented (and imaginary) as science fiction may seem like a contradiction in terms. But then science fiction has always had a curious relationship to the real world, said Jesse Sheidlower, its editor.

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The dictionary is the latest in a series of eclectic projects for Sheidlower, a former editor at large at the Oxford English Dictionary who first came to prominence in the 1990s, as part of a new generation of lexicographers injecting the field with a fresh nerd-cool factor.

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The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction includes some 1,800 separate entries, from “actifan” and “aerocar” to “zero-gravity” and “zine.” Headwords and other display type are rendered in Sagittarius, a new typeface by the designer Jonathan Hoefler, whose original typefaces have appeared on “Star Trek: Picard” (and in The New York Times).

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