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Saturday 22 January 2022
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 21 January 2022
Sponsor of the day: Martin Dorfer
Rathbone, Julian
(1935-2008) UK author – a great-nephew of the actor Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) – who concentrated almost exclusively on detective and historical fiction, but whose Trajectories (1998) is a movingly deracinated take on the UK of 2035, a Dystopia in which ethnic minorities are oppressed, travel restricted, and all media are under the control of central government (see Media Landscape). That this portrait turns out to be a "fictional" prophecy – written down in 1998 by a dying ...
Innes, Michael
Pseudonym used by Scots author and academic J I M Stewart (1906-1994) for his many detective and thriller novels published from 1936 to 1986, often featuring series character John Appleby in various official roles from detective-inspector to Sir John Appleby, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, and onward through a long, active retirement. Though fantastical and donnishly whimsical, these tales normally keep sf devices at arm's length, as with the distant threat of Disaster through man-made ...
Kearney, Susan
(1955- ) US author, usually of paranormal romances like the Pendragon Legacy [for titles see Checklist], though some of her work – especially the loose unnamed series comprising The Challenge (2005), The Dare (2005) and The Ultimatum (2006) – is amply tinged with sf. In the first of these, a secret agent finds love in the future through Time Travel; in the second, an AI in love subjects herself to Identity Transfer into the body of a teenager so her affair can ...
Struben, Bernd
(1968- ) Suriname-born author, in US from childhood. He is of sf interest primarily for two Space Operas: in 40 Years (2008), which is Military SF, soldiers are held in time stasis (see Stasis Field) until needed in the fight for Lebensraum against an Alien civilization, across the galaxy; The 13th Zookeeper (2011 ebook; 2012) is set on a planet Terraformed to resemble ancient Earth in order to serve as a Zoo to preserve some memory of the destroyed past. [JC]
Hesky, Olga
(1912-1974) UK editor and author in whose wry and somewhat Surrealist sf novel, The Purple Armchair (1961), the Alien who resembles an armchair and is purple must decide whether or not the human race – caught in a near-future Dystopia dominated by Computers – should survive. Eventually the "chair" says no. [JC]
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 and one Semiprozine Hugo for his self-produced news magazine, Ansible (which see). His one ...