About ISFDB Explorer
This site is built on data from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, a community-maintained bibliography of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Our queries run against a local copy of that database downloaded in early February 2026; additions and corrections made to ISFDB since then are not reflected here.
About The Database
- Authors with works 294,203
- Total titles (all types) 2,467,006
- — Novels 265,751
- — Short fiction 724,409
- — Collections 36,103
- — Anthologies 28,352
- — Nonfiction 19,096
- Series 57,353
- Magazine issues 82,591
- Distinct magazine titles 7,831
- Book publications 838,526
- Publishers 41,740
- Publications with cover images 833,469
- Titles with Wikipedia links 16,412
- Award types tracked 120
- Total award records 78,540
- Titles with at least one award 41,933
About This Project
This web site is a hobby project that combines two things that I have enjoyed for most of my life: Science Fiction and Computer Programming. I started programming (in Fortran II) 60 years ago, and started reading Science Fiction more like 70 years ago.
Creating this site has also given me a much better understanding of how far AI has come since I first played with the early releases of ChatGPT. The code for this web site (about 3,400 lines of Python and HTML) is completely AI generated, based on the instructions I've given to Claude Code in conversation with that system over the past few weeks.
The data itself is from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which is a massive collection of bibliographic information entered by volunteers from around the world. You can read more about the database and the ongoing project that created it, and continues to maintain it, at this FAQ page on the project's web site.