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Tuesday 15 October 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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Coover, Robert
(1932-2024) US author who established a considerable reputation with his novels, in which Fabulation and political scatology mix fruitfully. His work could be seen to represent a Postmodernist intensification of the same milieu excoriated by Richard Condon; at times both authors seem to be describing a nightmare dream of orgy-choked life in the Late Roman Empire (see ...
MacDiarmid, Hugh
Pseudonym of Scottish journalist, editor and author Christopher Murray Grieve (1892-1978), some of whose vast oeuvre contains poems – usually Satirical from a standpoint of radical Scottish nationalism – that use devices common to Fantastika to make their points. Sf is found less often, though it is sharply put, as in "The Bonnie Broukit Bairn", in Sangschaw (coll 1925 chap), where an awakened Earth is seen as ...
Mohs, Mayo
(1934-1996) US editor of the Religion-themed sf anthology Other Worlds, Other Gods: Adventures in Religious Science Fiction (anth 1971; vt Other Worlds, Other Gods 1974), introduced by himself and featuring stories by Anthony Boucher, John Brunner, Arthur C Clarke, Philip José Farmer and ...
Wooley, Sheb
(1921-2003) A rodeo rider and character actor particular associated with Western movies, Wooley is included here for his 1958 novelty record "The Purple People Eater"; a bouncy, light-hearted jingle about a space Alien, the "one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater" of the title, who descends to earth hoping to join a rock band, an ambition he realizes, perhaps improbably, at the song's end. According to some accounts this release is MGM's best selling single. ...
Themerson, Stefan
(1910-1988) Polish-born film director, scriptwriter, photographer, publisher and author, active in Poland from 1928 as the author of at least ten children's books, and in the 1930s as a maker and producer of five experimental films. Almost all this work was executed in collaboration with his wife from 1931 and lifelong creative partner Franciszka Themerson (1907-1988), beginning with their founding of the Polish Filmmakers Cooperative. At least one of the films they produced is of sf interest: ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...