The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies - John Scalzi

SF author Scalzi has written a substantive but mercifully brief overview of the genre, appropriately tracing it from the written history of SF from Plato's The Republic through to film released when the book was published in 2005. The writing is deft, shows respect for the subject matter, and is humourous as well as opinionated (not that there are many people who would contradict his opinion on the total wrongness that was Howard the Duck!) Though the text primarily focuses on film, there is a brief discussion about SF on TV and, as I said at the top of the review, a little on SF writing. If you're interested in the topic but don't know much about it, want to read a little more about an aspect of the genre, or want to see where what you like fits in to the bigger picture, this book is for you. - Alex