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Monday 16 September 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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Davis, Chandler
(1926-2022) US mathematician, academic and author, in Canada from 1960, after serving a short prison term for refusing to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee and subsequently losing his position as professor at the University of Michigan; in 1991, the university initiated the annual "Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic Freedom" (Mark Nickerson and Clement Markert had also been dismissed after refusing to testify). As a mathematician, he published many influential ...
Maddoux, Marlin
(1933-2004) US radio talk host, founder of International Christian Media and the National Center for Freedom and Renewal, and author whose The Seal of Gaia: A Novel of the Antichrist (1998) conceives in Christian terms of apocalyptic events in a 2033 world run by a single government in the name of Gaia, but whose secret agenda (see Paranoia) is evil. [JC]
Mason, Daniel
(1976- ) US doctor and author who remains best known for his first novel, The Piano Tuner (2002), an ostensibly nonfantastic tale which follows the eponymous expert into the heart of 1886 Burma, where a chthonic myth-fomenting physician's piano must be tuned in order for him to bring harmony to conflicting factions. Analogies with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899; 1902) have been noted. Several of the ...
Dodeman, Charles
(1873-? ) French author of a Near Future novel set in a continuing World War One, where the Invention of a new Weapon – a radioactive bomb dropped by airborne drones – changes the course of the conflict. Dodeman seems not to have been active after the mid-1930s. [JC]
Shock
US Digest-size magazine. Publisher: Winston Publications Inc. The uncredited editor was possibly Bart Anders. Three bimonthly issues: May, July and September 1960. / 1. This short-lived but high-quality weird fiction magazine – subtitled "The Magazine of Terrifying Tales" – consisted largely of reprints, mostly of strong stories by notable authors, many also active in sf. Selections include "The Emissary" (May 1943 ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...