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Monday 27 June 2022
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
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Wright, J C
(1874-1939) US author, most of his work focused on Native American civilizations, several of his titles, like The Crooked Tree: Indian Legends and a Short History of the Little Traverse Bay Region (coll 1917) containing his versions of traditional material. He is of some sf interest for The Great Myth (1922), a Lost Race tale about the Mound People, which treats his central concerns. This author, who was sometimes known as John C Wright, should not be confused with John C Wright. [JC]
Gurdjieff, G
(?1866-1949) Armenian philosopher of Greek descent, composer, mystic, teacher and author, in Russia proper (Armenia being a Russian territory) from 1912, in Turkey and mostly in France from 1920; his birth date is insecure, with 1872 and 1877 also being suggested. His doctrine of the Fourth Way – which seems essentially to apply "scientific" expressions of mystical intuitions with the aim of providing models of harmonious selfhood for his followers – deeply influenced figures like A ...
Leonard, Lawrence
(1923-2001) UK cellist, conductor, composer and author whose Young Adult tale, The Horn of Mortal Danger (1980), is set primarily Underground beneath London, where an ancient race, distinguishable from surface humans mostly by their small stature, has flourished for many centuries by carefully imitating life on the surface. From about 1800 these Undergrounders, who now think of their world as the North London System, have shaped their lives and habitations around two conflicting but interwoven ...
Williams, Mark London
(1959- ) US playwright, journalist and author of whose various work the Young Adult Danger Boy sequence beginning with Ancient Fire (2001) is of sf interest. The young protagonist, son of the inventor whose Invention is a Time Machine, is forced by a combination of Time Travel and portal transfer into an Alternate World modestly similar to ours, where his adventures continue. His returns to modern California counterpoint further expeditions into various eras. Two ...
Lance, Lancelot
An apparent pseudonym of the unidentified Australian author (? - ) of Hortense: A Study of the Future: A Romance (1906), set in a moderately distant Near Future Australia, which has become a high-Technology Utopia; the protagonist lands his Airship on an uncharted Island (apparently Vanua Lava) inhabited by survivors of a 1902 shipwreck (see Lost Race). He conveys one of these back to Australia where, as a classic Visitor, he is shown various marvels, ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos and one Semiprozine Hugo for his self-produced news magazine, Ansible (which see). His one ...