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Tuesday 8 October 2024
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.
Site updated on 7 October 2024
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Coover, Robert
(1932-2024) US author who established a considerable reputation with his novels, in which Fabulation and political scatology mix fruitfully. His work could be seen to represent a Postmodernist intensification of the same milieu excoriated by Richard Condon; at times both authors seem to be describing a nightmare dream of orgy-choked life in the Late Roman Empire (see ...
Ollivant, Alfred
(1874-1927) UK author who had been a soldier; a riding accident left him crippled (badly for ten years), and – long before the outbreak of World War One – he turned to writing. He remains best-known for his first book, Bob, Son of Battle (1898), about a wise and subtle sheepdog; he is of sf interest for his last book, To-morrow: A Romance of the Future (1927), in which twenty-fourth century England has become a ...
Simpson, N F
(1919-2011) UK playwright, screenwriter and author whose relationship to conventional sf is tangential, though several of his plays employ Absurdist SF strategies, including his first, A Resounding Tinkle (performed 1 December 1957 Royal Court Theatre, London; 1958 chap), in which new governments are formed in response to door-to-door enquiries, and a suburban couple is forced to complain when the elephant they had ordered is the wrong size; and ...
Capon, Paul
(1911-1969) UK author who also worked for many years in film and television production as an editor – working on three mid-1930s films for Maurice Elvey (1887-1967), including The Clairvoyant (1934) – and administrator, ending his career as head of the Film Department of Independent Television News (1963-1967). From 1942 he wrote fairly copiously in various genres, including detective and children's stories: 36 novels and one nonfiction book in all. He began writing sf ...
Ross, Charles
(1864-1930) UK soldier and author who reached the rank of Major-General during the First World War; after publishing considerable nonfiction on military materials, he released several novels after his retirement. Of sf interest is The Fly-by-Nights (1921), depicting a Near Future teetotal Britain threatened by the illegal importation of Drugs and liquor by Communists flying advanced Airships; ...
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 ...