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 ...
Beatty, Paul
(1962- ) US poet and author whose fictions comprise a deeply Satirical and hilarious anatomy of "Post-Racial America", a land where DWB (Driving While Black) is not a technical offense. The astronomically popular poet who narrates The White Boy Shuffle (1996) – his first collection, Watermelanin, has sold 126,000,000 copies – copes with an absurd but recognizable California (his ...
Martin, George R R
(1948- ) US editor and author whose career can be divided into four overlapping parts, in more or less chronological order: as a writer of sf; as a writer and producer for television; as an editor of original Anthologies; and as a dominant creator of dynasty fantasy. He began to publish work of genre interest with "The Hero" in Galaxy for February 1971, and his success was thereafter rapid. "A Song for Lya" (June ...
Crowder, Herbert
(1925-2022) US MIT graduate who served in World War Two and is the author of three Technothrillers of some sf interest: Ambush at Osirak (1988), with a threatened Israeli attack on a nuclear reactor installation (see Power Sources) in Iraq, which country has been armed with a Russian super-Weapon; Weatherhawk (1990), which involves ...
Mort en direct, La
French/West German film (1979; vt Death Watch). Selta Film/Little Bear/Sara Film/Gaumont/Antenne 2/TV 15. Coproduced and directed by Bernard Tavernier. Written by David Rayfiel, Tavernier, based on The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe (1974; rev vt The Unsleeping Eye 1974; vt Death Watch 1981) by D G Compton. Cast includes Harvey Keitel, Romy Schneider, ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and sf ...