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Thursday 30 November 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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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
Busch, Niven
(1903-1991) US screenwriter and author, active in Hollywood from the early 1930s and best known as a writer for the effectively erotized, soon-filmed Western Duel in the Sun (1944); he is of sf interest for The Titan Game (1989), a Technothriller set in the very Near Future; the tale's protagonist, unwilling inheritor of his father's Weapons ...
Questar
US magazine; letter-size and on Slick paper; 13 issues, Spring 1978 to October 1981; published by M W Communications Inc (William G Wilson and Robert V Michelucci), Pittsburgh; edited by William G Wilson Jr except for #12 (June 1981), edited by Paul D Adomites. The final, redesigned issue, had a new title: Quest/Star, subtitled "The World of Science Fiction". / Questar began as a media Semiprozine largely devoted to ...
Vance, Steve
Working name of US author Steven Edward Vance (1952- ), who has since the late 1980s focused largely on horror novels, though he began writing with some unremarkable but competently conceived sf adventures, including Planet of the Gawfs (1977), a Planetary Romance intended to be comic; All the Shattered Worlds (1980), a Space Opera; and The Hybrid (1981), an ...
Steakley, John
(1951-2010) US actor and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Bluenose Limit" for Amazing in 1981, but who is chiefly known for his two novels. Armor (1984), which is Military SF, focuses on an interstellar War between humanity and insectoid Aliens, engagements being fought by human soldiers from within the exoskeletons of nuclear-powered ...
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 ...