Science fiction used to be regarded as a genre that had limited appeal and wasn’t a part of mainstream culture.

Graham Sleight, managing editor of the new edition of “Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,” says that has changed since he first encountered the 1993 edition of the encyclopedia as a university student in Oxford, England.

Asked in an email interview what are the biggest changes since the last edition, Sleight wrote, “I’d suggest there are two things. The first — already visible in 1993 but increased now — is how much science fiction has seeped into the rest of culture. Hence, for instance, our much-expanded games and music coverage.

“The second is the extent to which the edges of the SF field are blurring. Although there’s still such a thing as core SF, there’s also increasingly — as the great SF critic Gary K. Wolfe has said — a sense in which the genre is evaporating and many interesting writers are doing work that isn’t easily classifiable as — SF.”

Gaming with a science fiction element existed in 1993, but there has been considerable growth and change since then, Sleight writes, and that’s a reason for its inclusion in the new edition.

“Partly the extent to which those games are doing new and interesting things with SF tropes. You couldn’t say that, say, Space Invaders did innovative things with SF ideas — but Bioshock or Half-Life do,” Sleight writes. “Also, we’ve had a wonderful contributing editor, Neal Tringham, who’s managed to give us a sense of the whole field in what he’s written.”

Sleight is “very much the junior partner in the new edition” that includes founding editor Peter Nicholls, John Clute and David Langford, who have “done astonishing amounts of wonderful writing for it,” he writes.

The previous print edition won a Hugo award for best non-fiction and the current online edition has been nominated for that honor.

So why an update now after so many years between editions?

“I think John Clute, in particular, had always been planning the update,” Sleight writes. “It was just a case of finding a publishing partner who was willing to take it on, and finding a way to make publishing it online workable.”

Currently in a beta, experimental phase, the third edition of the encyclopedia is being published online at www.sf-encyclopedia.com as it is being developed. A work-in-progress, it was launched in October, and uses as its foundation a 1995 CD-ROM version of the encyclopedia.

The sheer volume of material involved is the hardest part of the project, according to Sleight.

“It’s a huge project, and we’re a relatively small group of authors,” Sleight states. “Objectively, we all know we’re slowly getting the work done, but it can sometimes feel like a long haul.

“We’re aiming to get a basic text complete by the end of this year, and then keep updating/adding as new books/films are published.”

Whether there will be a print version of the new edition has yet to be determined.

Sleight said, “We want to get the basic text finished, and then see what the demand might be.”

Sleight’s favorite aspects of the previous edition and the new one is the journey to unexpected places it can take a reader, he said.

“With both,” he said, “I just like the experience of following a trail of cross-references, and ending up somewhere completely different from where I started.”

Sleight’s day job is as head of web and publications at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in London.

He is the editor of Foundation. and his criticism has appeared in Strange Horizons, The New York Review Of Science Fiction, and Vector. He writes a column for Locus and has written introductions for several volumes in the Gollancz SF Masterworks series. Sleight frequently writes about Doctor Who and co-edited The Unsilent Library, a book of essays about the Russell T. Davies era of the show, and provided commentary on the 2011 BBC DVD release of “The Ark.”

“Well, having a day-job makes life easier for me personally,” Sleight said. “It’s far more a labor of love for John and David, who are freelancers.”

The new encyclopedia is free online as it is being developed, but donations are being accepted. For information about that, go to http://sfencyclopedia.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/money-and-such/.

InConJunction coming soon

The theme of this year’s InConJunction is whimsically being called, “It’s the End of the World? But I feel fine!” The annual event will be July 6, 7 and 8 at the Indianapolis Marriott East.

I am among the panel members again this year, but the author guest of honor will be Kevin Hearne. A high school teacher, he is the author of The Iron Druid Chronicles, an urban fantasy series.

Among the many others guests scheduled to attend are Paul Taylor, creator of the Wapsi Square web comic; Mike Moore, SFX props master; Sam Stall, author of “The Night of the Living Trekkies,” Charlie Kaufman, disaster preparedness expert; and the bands Five Year Mission and Wild Mercy.

In addition to the panels, the convention will include concerts, a masquerade contest, a video trivia contest, Karaoke, a Dr. Who screening room, an anime and video room, a charity auction for the Indiana Literacy Association, an art auction, robot competition and the annual Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Blood Drive for the benefit of the Indiana Blood Center.

For registration and other information about InConJunction, visit www.inconjunction.org.

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