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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.
Site updated on 4 December 2023
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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 ...
Vertex
US magazine, in Slick letter-size saddle-stapled format, April 1973 to April 1975, and tabloid format June 1975-August 1975. 16 issues, 13 bimonthly, the last three monthly, published by Mankind Publishing, Los Angeles; edited by Donald J Pfeil. Subtitled "The Magazine of Science Fiction", Vertex was a magazine of imaginative layout and much internal illustration, the first real Slick magazine in the ...
Bell, Geo W
(1838-1907) US soldier (though his claim to the rank of Colonel has not been confirmed), real estate speculator, diplomat (Consul for the United States in Sydney, New South Wales, 1894-1900) and author; his sf novel, Mr Oseba's Last Discovery (1904 New Zealand) may have been written as a real estate promotion. The protagonist meets a traveling inhabitant of the Hollow Earth, who has arrived on the surface via the Arctic Symmes Hole (see John ...
Baron, Mike
(1949- ) US author and comics writer who scripted Nexus (which see) and several Graphic Novels, including Robotech: The Graphic Novel: Genesis: Robotech (graph 1986) (see Mecha), The Flash (graph 1987), the Star Wars: The Hand of Thrawn trilogy (see below), and Deadman: Lost Souls (graph 1995) with Kelley Jones and Les Dorscheid. ...
Amateur Magazine
A term used to distinguish between those magazines which are produced professionally (see Prozine) and those that are produced for the sheer pleasure of the product without financial consideration. For the purposes of this encyclopedia, Amateur Magazines are split into Fanzines, which are produced by fans for other fans and tend to be dedicated to the discussion and review of science fiction, with varying degrees of seriousness, and those ...
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 ...