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Tuesday 28 November 2023
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 27 November 2023
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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
Maniac Mansion
Videogame (1987). Lucasfilm Games. Designed by Ron Gilbert, Gary Winnick. Platforms: AppleII, C64, DOS (1987); Amiga, AtariST, NES (1988). / Maniac Mansion is a graphical Adventure game which parodies 1950s sf B-movies in a not dissimilar manner to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It introduced several innovations to ...
Clare, Cassandra
Pseudonym of Iranian-born author Judith Rumelt (1973- ), in the US from an early age, who signed as Cassandra Claire for early fan fiction; she began to publish work of genre interest with "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" in Turn the Other Chick (anth 2004) edited by Esther Friesner, but soon focused on longer book-length titles. She is best-known for two linked series of ...
Steranko, James
(1938- ) US Comic-book illustrator, writer and one-time stage magician and escapologist; Jack Kirby based his comic-book character Mr Miracle – Super Escape Artist (1971) on Steranko. His byline is most often Jim Steranko, but sometimes just Steranko. Influenced early in his career by Kirby, Steranko rapidly developed a reputation for originality, especially with his work for ...
Feldstein, Al
(1925-2014) US Comics artist, writer and editor who worked for EC Comics from 1948 to 1956, initially as an artist but later in all three capacities. From 1950 to 1953 he edited, often wrote and sometimes drew the EC sf Anthology comic Weird Science (which see), also working on several other EC "New Trend" titles, all cancelled in 1955, and their "New Direction" and ...
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 ...