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Friday 22 September 2023
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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Mayne, Andrew
(1973- ) US stage magician and author, probably best known in the former capacity; his fiction is various, some of it comprising nonfantastic thrillers [not listed below]. He is of sf interest for three series: the Chronological Man sequence beginning with The Chronological Man: The Monster in the Mist (2011 ebook), adventures in Steampunk-inflected venues; the Station Breaker sequence beginning with ...
Brownjohn, Alan
(1931- ) UK poet, man-of-letters and author, whose poetry – and whose infrequent fiction – is irradiated by a wry, compassionate, occasionally bitter socialist perspective on the course of British history; in this he is like and unlike Philip Larkin, as extensively demonstrated in a sympathetic study, Philip Larkin (1975 chap). His first fiction of sf interest – published in the ebb years of Thatcherism – is ...
McQuay, Mike
Working name of US author Michael Dennis McQuay (1949-1995), who began to publish sf with his first novel, Life-Keeper (1980), which very competently presents the kind of scenario he unrelentingly promulgated in book after book: a noir world governed by corrupt forces; a tough, anarchic, street-wise male protagonist whose powers – and virtue – are very exceptional indeed; and a plot which gives plenty of opportunities for arena-like conflicts between that ...
Zappa, Frank
(1940-1993) US composer, singer and guitarist. Of Zappa's seventy-five albums (many credited to "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention") some include references to Pulp-magazine heroics and monstrosities that are recognizably sf. Zappa was always happiest juxtaposing avant-garde classical, experimental, chart-pop and popular culture more generally, as in his extended jazz-fusion "King Kong" (on Uncle Meat, 1969), a version, obviously, of ...
Rogers, W A
(1854-1931) US cartoonist and author of The Lost Caravan (1927), a Lost Race tale for boys set in Africa, which he published after retiring from a long career, from 1873 to 1926, drawing political cartoons, mostly for Harper's Magazine. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its listing of Pseudonyms. ...