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Friday 8 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 ...
Oppenheim, E Phillips
(1866-1946) UK author, publishing at least 160 novels from 1887 until just before his death, some as by Anthony Partridge; most of them are tales of espionage or society detective mysteries, the best known being The Great Impersonation (February-July 1919 The Grand Magazine; 1920), a non-fantastic thriller. His sf novels of interest – several of the titles given in the Checklist below are romantic-fantasy potboilers, some with Ruritanian ...
Raleigh, Cecil
Pseudonym of UK actor and playwright Cecil Rowlands (1856-1914), author of an sf novel, The Master Crime (1907) with Joseph Lyons, a Near Future tale involving an anarchist destabilization of Britain, causing the Bank of England to close its doors (see Money); the more melodramatic elements of the tale may fairly be ascribed to Raleigh, as his theatrical works were well-known for their ...
Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle
US Comic strip created by Fletcher Hanks under the pseudonym Barclay Flagg. First appeared in Jungle Comics #2 (February 1940); last appearance in issue #51 (March 1944). The stories can be divided into three styles: original (issues #2-#15); jungle girl (#16-#26) and Egyptian queen (#27-#51) (see Ancient Egypt in SF). The first period, by some considerable margin, is the most interesting. / The original Fantomah's ...
Fear, W H
(1921-1989) Author, presumed to be British, who is known only for five early contributions to the numbered sequence of sf novels published by John Spencer and Co under the Badger Books imprint. The last of these, The Quest of the Seeker (1958), appeared under the House Name James Elton. [DRL/SH]
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 ...