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Friday 20 May 2022
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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Plowright, Teresa
(1952- ) Canadian author who began publishing sf with Dreams of an Unseen Planet (1986; rev 1989), in which three human colony ships, having escaped an Earth near terminal Ecological collapse, orbit a sentient planet called Gaea (see Gaia), where they are stranded, and difficulties soon ensue. The tale, heavily burdened with symbols and a selfconsciously significant prose, climaxes in the realization that the planet needs humans and humans need the planet for either ...
Garnett, David S
(1947- ) UK author, author of a large number of books, many of them novels, in various genres and under various names. To differentiate himself from the elder David Garnett he created a middle initial to add to his own name, and in the US signed his early books Dav Garnett, for the same reason; he has published novels also as David Lee and David Ferring. His sf has always been action-oriented and dominated by Space-Opera conventions, which he has never been able to take ...
Italy
To trace an Italian sf tradition is not easy, because of the well-established split in Italy between scientific language and "literary culture". It is of some relevance to read Dante Alighieri's great poem La divina commedia (circa 1304-1320 in manuscript; first printed edition 1472; trans Henry Cary as The Divine Comedy 1814) as a sort of sf journey; Dante used his theological allegory to create a world that in terms of medieval consciousness was perfectly real. But it may be more fruitful to ...
Satchell, William
(1861-1942) UK-born farmer, publisher, journalist and author, in New Zealand from 1886; intermittently active as a poet and journalist from around 1880, sometimes as by Samuel Cliall White and other names not identified. Of his four novels, the least popular was The Elixir of Life (1907), an sf story in which Immortality is sought, and perhaps achieved, through the Invention of a disease-averting serum. [JC]
Mergl, Václav
(1935- ) Czechoslovakian animator, artist, writer and director; graduate of VŠUP (the College of Applied Arts, Prague). His films were usually made for Krátký Film (later Krátký Film Praha a.s.). / Mergl used stop-motion techniques – both cut-outs and claymation – as well standard 2D animation, including woodcut-like illustrations; his films sometimes use a mixture of these styles. After a couple of experimental ...
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 and one Semiprozine Hugo for his self-produced news magazine, Ansible (which see). His one ...