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Sunday 19 January 2025
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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Lynch, David
(1946-2025) US actor, artist and musician and primarily filmmaker whose work extended Surrealism into mainstream Cinema and Television. Lynch's films tend to examine the uneasy truce between rationality and the unconscious mind by revealing how intimations of Sex, Identity and death make themselves felt in modern American communities. The term Lynchian was defined by David Foster ...
von Braun, Wernher
(1912-1977) German-born engineer and rocket scientist who notoriously led the Peenemünde team that developed Rocket technology for Nazi Germany before and during World War Two, leading to the V-2 or Vergeltungswaffe 2 ["Vengeance Weapon 2"] rocket-powered missile used against London and other Allied targets 1944-1945. As a Colonel in the Nazi SS, he has been accused of ...
Watson, Aaron
(1850-1926) UK journalist and author, active from the earl 1870s; he is of sf interest for For Lust of Gold [for subtitle see Checklist below] (1 November 1888-16 February 1889 The Shields Daily Gazette; 1892), a Lost Race tale, set in Elizabethan times, which describes the discovery of the hidden City of Manoa, where treasure is found but discord mounts. [JC]
McCloy, Helen
(1904-1994) US author, mostly of detective novels; she also wrote as Helen Clarkson. Through a Glass, Darkly (1950) is supernatural horror involving Doppelgangers. The Last Day: A Novel of the Day After Tomorrow (April 1958 Satellite Science Fiction; much exp 1959) as by Clarkson is a Near Future sf novel on an Island off the ...
Moeri, Louise
(1924-2021) US author, mostly for the children's and Young Adult markets, who began to publish work of genre interest with a Christmas fantasy for younger children, Star Mother's Youngest Child (1975 chap). Of direct sf interest is Downwind (1984), a Near Future tale recounting the effects of a nuclear Disaster on a family attempting to escape fallout. [JC]
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 ...