SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Stoddard, Charles
Pseudonym of US author Charles Stanley Strong (1906-1962), whose sf novel, North of the Stars (1937), describes a clement Lost World near the North Pole, where a white queen rules a race of "primitive" "Eskimos". Stoddard should not be confused with the real American poet Charles Stoddard (1843-1909). [JC]
Mitchell, Clyde
A Ziff-Davis House Name, 1956-1957, used twice by Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett in collaboration, twice by Henry Slesar (confirmed by Slesar himself), and once by Harlan Ellison on "The Wife Factory" (November 1957 Fantastic). [PN/MA]
Laika
UK indie-rock band founded in 1993 by US-born musician and singer Margaret Fiedler McGinnis (1967- ) and UK bass-guitarist John Frenett (1970- ) and named (of course) for the first mammal to orbit the earth. The group's complexly rhythmic, slippery, hypnotic music manifests a persistent fascination with outer space. The band's first release, Silver Apples of the Moon (1995) – this album has no relation to Morton ...
Maginn, William
(1794-1842) Irish journalist and author, in England from 1824, an early contributor to Blackwood's Magazine's famous series, Noctes ambrosianae, in which imaginary characters (Maginn's guise was Sir Morgan Odoherty) discuss the world and its figures; his contributions were assembled as The Odoherty Papers (coll 1855 2vols). After a story of some fantastical interest, "The Man in the Bell" (November 1821 Blackwood's), which was an acknowledged influence on ...
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 ...