[*closer to shelves with books you can buy - no borrowing from this library]

Gollancz, the SF and Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, announces the launch of the world’s largest digital SFF library*, the SF Gateway, which will make thousands of out-of-print titles by classic genre authors available as eBooks.

Building on the remarkable success of Gollancz’s Masterworks series, the SF Gateway will launch this Autumn with more than a thousand titles by close to a hundred authors. It will build to 3,000 titles by the end of 2012, and 5,000 or more by 2014. Gollancz’s Digital Publisher Darren Nash, who joined the company in September 2010 to spearhead the project said, “The Masterworks series has been extraordinarily successful in republishing one or two key titles by a wide range of authors, but most of those authors had long careers in which they wrote dozens of novels which had fallen out of print. It seemed to us that eBooks would offer the ideal way to make them available again. This realization was the starting point for the SF Gateway.” Wherever possible, the SF Gateway will offer the complete backlist of the authors included.

The SF Gateway will be closely integrated with the recently announced new online edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which provides an independent and definitive reference source of information on the authors and books included. Direct links between the Encyclopedia and the Gateway will provide easy access to eBook editions, for sale through all major online retailers.

The Gateway site will also act as a major community hub and social network for SF readers across the world, allowing them to interact with each other and recommend titles and authors. The site is planned to include forums, blogs, regular promotions, and is envisaged to become the natural home on the net for anyone with an interest in classic SFF.

Authors featured in the launch include such names as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Alice B. Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr), Robert Silverberg, Kate Wilhelm and Connie Willis. A full list of authors so far under contract is appended to this announcement; negotiations are in an advanced state for many more.

The project has been praised by authors for connecting new generations of readers with classic stories they may not, until now, have been able to enjoy.

British Science Fiction Award-winner Alastair Reynolds said: “When I first started reading SF seriously, as a teenager growing up in Wales, one of the first walls I hit was the realisation that many classic and influential works of the field were either out of print or so hard to obtain that they may as well have been. SF is a forward-looking genre but its past has always been as fascinating as its future, and for that reason the SF Gateway is an exciting and groundbreaking venture, which should prove an enormous asset to the field.”

Double Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner Pat Cadigan added: “This is exactly what I’ve been hoping for now that the digital book is becoming more widespread. I have always said that the eBook will not be the death of the physical book – the eBook will save so many wonderful books from being lost. We have to remember that what we read is the book – what we read it on, whether ink and paper or pixels on a screen, is just the interface. I’m honestly thrilled about this new project and delighted to be on the list.”

The SF Gateway will be officially launched by Gollancz in September as part of the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of its SF list.

This is absolutely staggering news. Not only because it’s big and I mean a BIG project but also it’s unexpected. I said in April that The ‘Old Guard’ Are Innovating and that was just an announcement of e-novellas and a e-book only back catalogue. Well that was only a prelude. I’ve highlighted the bits that I find most noteworthy. Especially the aim of 3,000 e-books in 2012, the plan to be similar to Tor.com but with a cross with online version of  The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, and the fact that the canon of SFF is going to have an L-Space library space of it’s own on cyberspace.

There is some omissions like pricing, but got addressed on twitter:

Pricing? TBA closer to launch so that we can be sure we’re in line with prevailing market trend, but competitive & value for money.

And you can’t argue with that as Gollancz have just upped the stakes.

What is lovely though is that Gollancz probably don’t have to do it, as they don’t have to do their Masterworks series. I’d place bets that they’d do quite well without doing it. And I’m basing that mostly on the fact that most other publishers apart from Vintage and Penguin (or at least those are the ones that spring to mind) mix the new and old with the same level of respect.

And whose backlisted works might be out soon?

1. Poul Anderson
2. Barrington J. Bayley
3. Gregory Benford
4. Michael Bishop
5. James P. Blaylock
6. James Blish
7. Marion Zimmer Bradley
8. John Brosnan
9. Fredric Brown
10. John Brunner
11. Algis Budrys
12. Kenneth Bulmer
13. Edgar Rice Burroughs
14. Pat Cadigan
15. John W. Campbell, Jr
16. Terry Carr
17. Arthur C. Clarke
18. Hal Clement
19. D.G. Compton
20. Michael G. Coney
21. Edmund Cooper
22. Richard Cowper
23. John Crowley
24. L. Sprague de Camp
25. Samuel R. Delany
26. Philip K. Dick
27. Gordon R. Dickson
28. Christopher Evans
29. Philip Jose Farmer
30. John Russell Fearn
31. Alan Dean Foster
32. Mary Gentle
33. Mark S. Geston
34. Joseph L. Green
35. Colin Greenland
36. Nicola Griffith
37. Joe Haldeman
38. Harry Harrison
39. Frank Herbert
40. Philip E. High
41. Robert Holdstock
42. Cecelia Holland
43. Robert E. Howard
44. Raymond F. Jones
45. Leigh Kennedy
46. Garry Kilworth
47. Damon Knight
48. Henry Kuttner
49. Tanith Lee
50. Murray Leinster
51. H.P. Lovecraft
52. Katherine MacLean
53. Barry N. Malzberg
54. Phillip Mann
55. Rachel Pollack
56. Tim Powers
57. Mack Reynolds
58. Keith Roberts
59. Eric Frank
60. Russell Josephine
61. Saxton Bob Shaw
62. Robert Silverberg
63. Clifford D. Simak
64. Dan Simmons
65. John Sladek
66. Cordwainer Smith
67. E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith
68. Norman Spinrad
69. Olaf Stapledon
70. Theodore Sturgeon
71. William Tenn
72. Sheri S. Tepper
73. James Tiptree, Jr
74. E.C. Tubb
75. George Turner
76. Harry Turtledove
77. Jack Vance
78. Ian Watson
79. Ted White
80. Kate Wilhelm
81. Connie Willis
82. Robert Charles Wilson
83. Gene Wolfe
84. David I. Masson
85. C.L. Moore
86. Ward Moore
87. Edgar Pangborn
88. Frederik Pohl

That’s a pretty strong start! What do you think?