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Monday 13 January 2025
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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Maginn, William
(1794-1842) Irish journalist and author, in England from 1824, an early contributor to Blackwood's Magazine's famous series, Noctes ambrosianae, in which imaginary characters (Maginn's guise was Sir Morgan Odoherty) discuss the world and its figures; his contributions were assembled as The Odoherty Papers (coll 1855 2vols). After a story of some fantastical interest, "The Man in the Bell" (November 1821 Blackwood's), which was an acknowledged influence on ...
Box, Muriel
(1905-1991) UK playwright, scriptwriter and director, often in collaboration with her husband, Sydney Box (1907-1983), who (because of the resistance to women directors) sometimes served as her beard; they shared an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for The Seventh Veil (1946). Her sf novel, The Big Switch (1964), is a Sleeper Awakes tale whose handsome male protagonist is revived into a world in which he is the only man (see ...
Science Fiction Digest
1. US Digest-size magazine. Two issues, February and May 1954, published by Specific Fiction Corporation, New York, edited by Chester Whitehorn. Science Fiction Digest was intended as a reprint magazine which would take its material from the slick general-fiction magazines and other sources, but the selections were weak and it quickly failed. Its (purportedly) nonfiction articles had a strong occult and ESP bent. The same ...
Hirschman, Edward
(1950- ) Author, presumably US and perhaps pseudonymous, whose Tarzan at Mars' Core (1977) is a weak pastiche of Edgar Rice Burroughs in which a UFO transports Tarzan to what appears to be a Far Future version of Burroughs's Pellucidar set within Mars. This Hollow Earth ...
Brown, Pierce
(1988- ) US author whose Red Rising sequence, comprising Red Rising (2014), Golden Son (2015) and Morning Star (2016), soon proves more interesting than its Young Adult Dystopia trappings might hint. The tale is set on Mars, where society is divided into castes according to imposed colour branding [for Colour-Coding, as more usually ...
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 ...