SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 7 December 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.
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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 ...
Curties, Henry
(1860-1928) UK author, who sometimes wrote as Captain Henry Curties; his first sf novel, Tears of Angels (1907), features its protagonist's conveyance to Alpha Centauri on an angel, who is perhaps weeping; from the star he gains a perspective on Earth, then returns home to find himself in an Alternate-History version of the future. Out of the Shadows (1908) is a detection with occult elements; When England Slept ...
Konga
Film (1961; vt I Was a Teenage Gorilla). Anglo Amalgamated American International Pictures. Produced by Herman Cohen, Nathan Cohen and Stuart Levy (uncredited). Directed by John Lemont. Written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel from their original idea. Cast includes Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon, Michael Gough and Margo Johns. 90 minutes. Colour. / Botanist Dr Charles Decker (Gough) is discovered alive after disappearing in an ...
Odoevsky, Vladimir
(1803-1869) Russian music critic and composer, philosopher, politician and author, almost exclusively of short stories; he wrote cookery articles as by Mister Puff; his surname is also transliterated as Odoyevsky. He was the last survivor of an ancient Russian family, and could therefore legitimately be designated a prince. Most of his early work was written for children, sometimes as by Granddad Irinei, and has not been widely translated; he is perhaps best known for Russkije nochi ...
SF
Pronounced "esseff", the preferred abbreviation of "science fiction" within the community of sf writers and readers, as opposed to the journalistic Sci Fi, a distinction that many older sf readers continue to adhere to, but which has become increasingly blurred, as in "The Science Fiction Issue" of The New Yorker (4-11 June 2012), whose masthead also describes its contents as "Sci-Fi". In this volume – as often elsewhere – the abbreviation is ...
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 ...