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Monday 2 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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Kuppord, Skelton
Pseudonym of UK academic, educationist and author John Adams (1857-1934), prolific author of nonfiction under his own name. As Kuppord, he wrote several tales, usually for boys; The Uncharted Island (dated 1899 but 1898) engages its cast Underground in borderline sf activities beneath a South Pacific Island; his sf novel proper, A Fortune from the Sky (dated 1903 but 1902), features several ...
Van Zile, Edward S
(1863-1931) US author of some sf interest for two of the tales assembled in A Magnetic Man and Other Stories (coll 1890): the protagonist of "A Magnetic Man", whose various Inventions do nothing to make him liked, learns how to control electricity, which governs affinities; and "Chemical Clairvoyance" features a device capable of recording the backward traces of the future on atoms, thus making Prediction possible. "The ...
Davey, Norman
(1888-1949) UK engineer and author, in active service throughout World War One, whose Perhaps: A Tale of To-morrow (1914; rev vt Yesterday: A Tory Fairy-Tale 1924) wittily (but also frivolously) describes the Near-Future secession of the Isle of Wight. Although copies of the original version of Perhaps exist, there is no clear evidence that it was officially published; this omission was almost ...
Holt, Tom
(1961- ) UK author – a solicitor before he turned to full-time writing in 1995 – whose debut was the precocious "Poems by Tom Holt" (coll 1973 chap). He is best known for his numerous comic fantasies, beginning with the genially myth-based Expecting Someone Taller (1987) and Who's Afraid of Beowulf? (1988) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. ...
Jackson, Sarah K
(? - ) UK professional Ecologist and author whose first novel, Not Alone (2023), clearly draws upon her scientific training in the depiction of a Near Future world devastated by chemical and plastic Pollution. The protagonist, a young mother whose lungs are deteriorating after five years in the south of England, undertakes what could be described as a ...
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 ...