SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 6 December 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 2 December 2024
Sponsor of the day: Glasgow 2024 (Worldcon)
Hanifin, John M
(? -? ) US author, whose reported death circa 1898 seems unlikely as manuscripts in his name were being submitted for publication five years later; his Lost Race novel, The Blind Men and the Devil (1891) as by Phineas, describes the experiences of a married couple who, mistaken for dead, are dumped into a river and discover an Underground world inhabited by a blind race. ...
Pflug, Ursula
(1958- ) Tunisian born author, raised in Canada, who began to publish work of interest with "Memory Lapse at The Waterfront" (in New Bodies: A Collection of Science Fiction, anth 1981, ed anon), which was assembled, with other speculative fictions, as After the Fires (coll 2008). Her novel, Green Music (2001), Equipoisally combines Afterlife fantasy [see The ...
Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann
(1947- ) US author whose work has long properly been read as fantasy, but some of whose later novels transcend genre boundaries in interesting ways. Her early novels – like her first, Song of Sorcery (1982), which begins the Songs from the Seashell Archives sequence, tend to lightweight effects; a little later, in tales like The Drastic Dragon of Draco, Texas (1986), the first volume of the Drastic Dragon sequence, a more ...
Stirling, Yates, Jr
(1872-1948) US naval officer and author, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral; he should not be confused with his father, Yates Stirling (1843-1929), also a Rear Admiral. He is of sf interest for various stories and essays about the role of the navy in any Future War, the first of these probably being "With the Coming of the Dawn" in The Bellman for 23 November 1907. His Yellow Peril tales, with Japan the preferred adversary, ...
Comfort, Alex
(1920-2000) UK medical doctor, poet and author of significant popular work in the fields of sexology and gerontology, being perhaps best known for The Joy of Sex (1972; frequently revised), many of whose interior illustrations were by Chris Foss. Before World War Two he established an extremely precocious reputation for his poetry and fiction, and for the pacifism he espoused rigorously during the years of conflict (later, in 1961, in connection ...
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 ...