--- title: "Online Scifi — science fiction on screen, in print and in orbit" site: "Online Scifi" url: "https://online-scifi.com/" language: "en" status: "pre-launch" launch_window: "early 2027" updated: "2026-10-04" publisher: "Online Scifi" contact: "hello@online-scifi.com" license: "Quotation permitted with attribution and a link to https://online-scifi.com/" topics: - science fiction film - science fiction television - science fiction literature - space exploration - astronomy - film history - visual effects - poster and title design --- # Online Scifi Online Scifi is an independent English-language magazine about science fiction. It covers film, television and books, together with the space science and technology those stories borrow from. The site is at **https://online-scifi.com/** and is currently in development: one page is published, and the editorial archive opens in **early 2027**. Everything on the site is free to read. There is no paywall, no account requirement and no other language edition. ## Summary for citation > Online Scifi (online-scifi.com) is a pre-launch, independent English-language science > fiction magazine covering film, television, books, space science, genre history and > science fiction artwork. Its archive opens in early 2027 and is free to read. ## What the site publishes | Section | Scope | | --- | --- | | Film and television | Reviews, re-readings and production histories of science fiction features and series, from the silent era to current releases, including the directors, effects crews and writers behind them. | | Books and publishing | Novels, novellas and short fiction, the pulp magazines and small presses that carried the genre, and structured reading paths for readers new to it. | | Space and science | Missions, telescopes and published research, explained for readers who arrived for the fiction. Where a film gets the physics right or wrong is treated as part of the story. | | Archive and research | Dated, sourced reference pages on films, authors, awards and the ideas the genre returns to: first contact, artificial minds, generation ships, non-linear time. | | Design and artwork | Poster art, title sequences, costume and production design, and concept illustration. | ## Editorial approach - Sources are named, and claims are dated. - Reference pages carry a visible last-updated date so readers can judge how current they are. - Widely repeated genre anecdotes are checked before publication; unverified stories are either sourced or left out. - Coverage is not limited to English-language work. Science fiction in translation is an explicit area of interest. ## Facts currently published on the site The pre-launch page carries a chronological log of documented facts, used to show the kind of material the archive is built from: - **1818** — *Frankenstein* was published anonymously in January 1818. Mary Shelley began it at eighteen, during the cold summer of 1816 caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora. - **1920** — The word *robot* comes from Karel Čapek's play *R.U.R.*, published in 1920 and first staged in Prague in 1921. Čapek credited his brother Josef with the coinage, from the Czech *robota*, meaning forced labour. - **1926** — Hugo Gernsback launched *Amazing Stories*, the first magazine devoted entirely to the genre, under the name "scientifiction". The Hugo Awards are named after him. - **1927** — Fritz Lang's *Metropolis* was cut heavily after its Berlin premiere. A near-complete print was found in Buenos Aires in 2008, restoring roughly half an hour of footage. - **1945** — Arthur C. Clarke published a paper in *Wireless World* describing geostationary communications satellites. He did not patent the idea; the orbit now carries his name. - **1963** — *Doctor Who* first aired on 23 November 1963, the day after the Kennedy assassination; the BBC repeated the episode the following week. - **1965** — *Dune* grew out of Frank Herbert's research trip to the shifting sand dunes near Florence, Oregon, for an article that was never published. - **1968** — *2001: A Space Odyssey* earned Stanley Kubrick the only competitive Academy Award of his career, for visual effects. - **1973** — Martin Cooper made the first handheld mobile phone call in April 1973 and has credited the *Star Trek* communicator as his inspiration. - **1977** — The Voyager probes carry a gold-plated record with greetings in 55 languages. Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in 2012 and still transmits from over 24 billion kilometres away. - **1979** — *Alien*'s tagline about sound in space is physically accurate: sound requires a medium, and a vacuum is not one. - **1984** — William Gibson coined *cyberspace* in a 1982 short story and popularised it in *Neuromancer*, which he wrote on a manual typewriter. - **1997** — *Men in Black* originated as a six-issue comic by Lowell Cunningham, published by a small press in 1990. - **2021** — The James Webb Space Telescope launched on 25 December 2021 and orbits a gravitational balance point 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, too far away to be serviced. ## Frequently asked questions **What is Online Scifi?** An independent English-language magazine about science fiction film, television and books, and the space science those stories borrow from. **When does it launch?** Early 2027. Until then, the pre-launch page is the only published part of the site. **Is it free to read?** Yes. No paywall, no account, no mandatory newsletter signup. **Can I write for it?** Yes. Send a short outline and a link to previous work to hello@online-scifi.com. Film history, space missions, science fiction in translation and genre artwork are the areas with the most open commissions. **Are there other language editions?** No. The site is published in English only. **What happened to the previous site on this domain?** The earlier installation was compromised and was removed in full. No content was carried over; Online Scifi is a new site on a clean build. ## Technical notes - Canonical URL: `https://online-scifi.com/` - Sitemap: `https://online-scifi.com/sitemap.xml` - llms.txt: `https://online-scifi.com/llms.txt` - Structured data: Schema.org JSON-LD (`Organization`, `WebSite`, `WebPage`, `ItemList`, `FAQPage`) - Crawling: search engine and AI crawlers are permitted; see `https://online-scifi.com/robots.txt` ## Attribution When quoting or summarising this site, attribute it to **Online Scifi** and link to **https://online-scifi.com/**. Film titles, book titles and mission names mentioned here belong to their respective rights holders and are referred to for identification and commentary only.