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Wednesday 6 December 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 ...
Vinge, Vernor
(1944- ) US author and professor of mathematics at San Diego State University until 2000, when he retired to write full-time; married to Joan D Vinge 1972-1979. He began publishing sf with "Apartness" for New Worlds in June 1965, and appeared fairly regularly in Analog, his best early work being collected in True Names and Other Dangers (coll 1987), which contains ...
Roger, Aristide
Working name of French physician and author Pierre-Jules Aristide Rengade Roger (1841-1915), whose Aventures extraordinaires de Trinitus; ou le Voyage sous les flots, rédigés d'après le journal de bord de l'Éclair (first appeared October 1867-last instalment unknown Le Petit Journal; 1868; trans Brian Stableford as Voyage Beneath the Waves 2013) is a ...
Hasson, James
(? - ) French-born author long in the UK, in whose Bid Time Return (1960) a cancer researcher (see Medicine) discovers the dangerous secret of Rejuvenation. The novel does not focus on realistic consequences. [JC]
Chayefsky, Paddy
Working name of US playwright and author Sidney Aaron Chayefsky (1923-1981), most famous for his work as a Television dramatist; Marty (produced 1953) marks for many a culmination (and a sign of the passing) of the Golden Age of US television drama. The Tenth Man (first performed 1959; 1960) is a Dybbuk fantasy based on The Dybbuk (1920) by S Ansky (1863-1920). His sf novel, Altered States (1978) (see ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and sf ...