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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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Goodman, Dickie
(1934-1989) US record producer who with his aspiring songwriter friend Bill Buchanan (1930-1996) launched both their careers with the comic novelty record "The Flying Saucer Parts 1 and 2" (1956). Inspired by Orson Welles's radio broadcast War of the Worlds (1938), it is credited with being the first record to use the "break-in" technique, which evolved into modern-day sampling. Buchanan and Goodman ...
Bentley, Peter
Pseudonym of Alan Moon (? - ), an author whose single sf novel for Robert Hale Limited is Destined to Survive (1977). [DRL]
Petithuguenin, Jean Alexandre
Pseudonym of French translator and author J A de Saint Valry (1878-1939), who concentrated in his prolific career mostly on thrillers; his pseudonym was sometimes given as Petit-Huguenin. Titles of sf interest include Une mission internationale dans la Lune ["An International Mission to the Moon"] (first version appeared 1926 Journal Des Voyages; rev 1933), in which scientifically plausible Rockets are used to propel a ...
Vaughan, Herbert M
(1870-1948) Welsh local historian, bibliographer and author, administratively involved in World War One though not in active service. He is of sf interest primarily for two novels. Meleager: A Fantasy (1916) is set on a miniature version of Earth and the Solar System (see Great and Small), where a Eugenic Dystopia ...
Hird, James Dennis
(1850-1920) UK author involved in nineteenth-century temperance movements and Christian socialism: he was Warden of Ruskin College in Oxford – a working-class college located in Oxford to underline some obvious points about the class-structure of British education – from its founding in 1899 until 1909. Toddle Island; Being the Diary of Lord Bottsford (1894) as by Lord Bottsford, is an Erewhonian Utopia set on an ...
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 ...