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Monday 5 June 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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Abbey, Lloyd
(1943- ) Canadian teacher and author, much of whose poetry dramatizes the natural world, as does his sf novel The Last Whales (1989), in which whales (and some dolphins who have escaped from their African-based military training academy) live realistically conceived (non-speaking) lives in the oceans of a Near Future post-Disaster world. The tale advances at a dignified pace; it does not end in a ...
Broomhead, Reginald
(? -? ) UK author of A Voice from Mars: Adventure and Romance (1923), whose protagonists engage in adventures on Mars, which much resembles our home planet, though a successful Utopian civilization seems to flourish (no details are provided). The tale was written for young readers. [JC]
Bellamy, Edward
(1850-1898) US author and journalist, the latter from 1871, when he abandoned the practice of law before having properly begun it; no lawyers exist in the 2000 CE of his most famous work, the Utopia Looking Backward 2000-1887 (1888) and its sequel, Equality (1897), whose influence in the nineteenth century was enormous. His early works of fiction were Gothic; sentimental and labouredly influenced by Nathaniel ...
Stoddard, Thomas A
(1857-1937) Canadian surgeon and author, in US from 1892, member of the American College of Surgeons; he served in World War One as a captain in the American Army Medical Corps. Of sf interest is The Quest (1909), a Lost Race tale whose protagonist – a doctor who has fled to Venezuela to avoid criminal charges – spends five years treating an ancient Gaelic-speaking civilization of mixed Viking and Incan ...
Gridban, Volsted
Pseudonym initially used by E C Tubb for three novels written for Scion Publications: Alien Universe (1952), Reverse Universe (1952) and Debracy's Drug (1953). Tubb then used the name on two novels for the Milestone Press – Planetoid Disposals, Ltd (1953) and Fugitive of Time (1953) – but Scion objected and reclaimed the name, which was used thereafter by John Russell ...
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 ...