Site of the Week -- Oct. 9, 2000
on't have time to read an entire series? There's always CliffsNotes.
Don't even have time for the CliffsNotes? Try Book-a-Minute, which ironically "ultra-condenses" over a hundred novels, series and even entire lifetime bodies of work down to their core content--sometimes no more than a sentence or two of wry dialogue or description. For instance, the entire collected writing of Raymond E. Feist is summed up thus: "Character #1:: I'm goodhearted and honest. Character #2: I'm goodhearted and sneaky. (They save the world six times.)" Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune is reduced even further: "Leto II: Infinity.
Reader: Ouch, my head just exploded."
The page design is as simple as the sardonic humor--no images, no animation, no bells and whistles, just a list of titles organized by author and links to other rinkworks.com sites. The whole family of sites (including Classics, Bedtime Stories, and Movies as well as SF/F) are cynical, snide and often right on target. They mercilessly skewer authors' pretensions and obfuscations by cutting to the heart of each work and exposing its barest bones. It's cruel and sometimes juvenile satire, but it's still strikingly effective and remarkably funny.
-- Tasha Robinson
Site of the Week -- Oct. 2, 2000
ust as they did with The Blair Witch Project, Haxan Films once again blurs the line between fact and fiction, this time with the official Web site for the television series Freakylinks. The storyline features the adventures of Derek Barnes as he compiles information on the paranormal for his underground Web site. Supposedly, viewers will be able to follow the series simultaneously on the Web once the show premieres on October 6, 2000.
Freakylinks (the site) is dedicated to "the weird, the unusual, the occult, the paranormal and the just plain silly." Its vast compendium of information is well organized, thoroughly researched and painstakingly detailed. The depth of the site is amazing, considering that its creator is a fictitious character.
The "Diary" section features almost daily entries by Derek, going back to 1998. There are three live "freak-cams," which seek to capture mythical creatures like the "Okeechobee Ogre" on film. A section called "Friend or Foe" offers free screen savers and desktop themes as well as a discussion board where visitors can share their stories of the unexplained. Other features include an FAQ, which introduces Derek and some of the other characters from the show, an online store and the "Freak-A-Dential," an email newsletter that notifies subscribers when the site has been updated.
If the ratings for Freakylinks aren't stellar in the first few weeks, both the show and the Web site could become a mere footnote in cultural history. That would be a shame, considering the effort that has been poured into the site, which shows the promise of becoming more interesting as the series progresses.
-- Cindy White
Site of the Week -- September 25, 2000
erhaps one of the biggest questions anyone can ever ask is "What if?" And it's from this question that the genre of alternate history (also known as uchronia, allohistory and a number of other names) arose, encompassing stories that explore such questions as "What if the Nazis had won World War II?" or "What if Babbage's analytical engine had actually worked?"
Uchronia is first and foremost "an annotated bibliography of novels, stories, essays and other material involving the 'what ifs' of history." It is lovingly and intelligently compiled, and arranged in a no-nonsense manner. The site includes, among other things, a searchable database of allohistorical works in print, with separate lists of anthologies and collections, series, reference materials and works published in other languages; the entries for the works themselves also contain a great deal of information, including brief synopses. The site also provides a "divergence chronology" (a timeline of dates/periods addressed in all the listed works), a large cover art gallery and a heap of good information about how to obtain alternate history books.
And "what if" visitors are still having a hard time figuring out exactly what alternate history is all about? Well, the smart and accessible essay the site offers as an introduction to the genre is, like the site as a whole, a great resource.
-- Matthew McGowan
