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Thursday 5 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.
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Gorman, Ed
(1941-2016) US author, principally of crime, western and horror fiction, in which fields his reputation was high. He was active in Fandom in the 1950s and 1960s, in the latter decade publishing the Fanzine Ciln. His principal contribution to sf was his co-authorship as Richard Driscoll of the Star Precinct trilogy with Kevin D Randle; this opens with Star Precinct (1992) and ...
Torture
The darker side of sf and fantasy has produced many inventive torture devices, such as the fantasticated apparatus in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" (in The Gift, anth dated 1843 but 1842) and Franz Kafka's The Penal Colony (1919 chap; trans 1933). The torments of the Spanish Inquisition, as luridly imagined in Poe's story, are revisited in Patricia ...
Schwartz, David J
(1970- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Thieves' Justice" in Dragon Magazine for February 1994, and who specialized in shorter fiction for several years. His first novel, Superpowers (2008), moved him suddenly into greater prominence with its accurate deconstruction of (and homage to) the American Superheroes genre, though it clearly inhabits a post-Watchmen ...
Cummings, Ray
Working name of US author Raymond King Cummings (1887-1957), writer of over 600 identified stories under various names in various genres, about 350 of them between 1935 and 1942; it is estimated he probably wrote at least 750 tales in all. He was one of the few writers active during the heyday of US Pulp-magazine sf (1930-1950) to have begun his career before Hugo Gernsback launched Amazing in 1926. One of ...
Wild, Wild West, The
1. US tv series (1965-1969). A Michael Garrison Production/CBS TV. Created by Michael Garrison. Producers Garrison, Fred Freiberger, Gene L Coon, Collier Young, John Mantley, Bruce Lansbury. Writers included Henry Sharp, John Kneubuhl, Ken Kolb, Ken Pettus. Directors included Paul Wendkos, Richard Donner, Irving Moore, Robert Sparr, Alan Crosland Jr, Marvin Chomsky. Four ...
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 ...