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Friday 13 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.
Site updated on 9 September 2024
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October, John
Pseudonym of UK author Christopher Portway (1923-2009) whose sf novel for Robert Hale Limited, The Anarchy Pedlars (1976), is set in a Near Future world threatened by a revived cult of assassins. [JC]
Druillet, Philippe
(1944- ) Innovative French artist with an epic imagination and an astringent pen-line style who cofounded with Moebius (Jean Giraud) and others the publishing company Les Humanöides Associés and the imaginative graphic-fiction magazine Métal Hurlant in 1975; much of the contents of the latter have been published in English in the US magazine Heavy Metal. / ...
Zap Gun
A usually facetious term for the sf Blaster, Ray Gun or Stunner. Its first recorded appearance in print, according to the online Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, was in an October 1934 US newspaper ad for a Buck Rogers spinoff Toy: "Buck Rogers Zap Gun 35¢". Brian W Aldiss's ...
Tilley, Robert J
(? - ) UK jazz musician, graphic designer and author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Devil and Mr Wooller" in Ellory Queen's Mystery Magazine for September 1955; almost all his short work appeared by 1972, and was assembled as The Dark Corners: Fantastic Crime Stories (coll 2014) and Something Else: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Robert J Tilley (coll 2015). His stories are crisply told, ...
Imaginative Tales
US Digest-size magazine, a bimonthly companion to Imagination, published by William Hamling's Greenleaf Publishing, which ran for 26 issues from September 1954-November 1958. The last three issues, July-November 1958, were published under the title Space Travel (but continued the previous numeration) in a doomed effort to capture the post-Sputnik space-enthusiast market. It was edited by ...
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 ...