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Monday 9 December 2024
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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Brown, Fredric
(1906-1972) US author of detective novels and much sf, and for many years active in journalism. He is perhaps best known for such detective novels as The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), which won an Edgar Award, but is also highly regarded for his sf, which is noted for its elegance and Humour, and for a polished slickness not generally found in the field in 1941, the year he published his first sf story, "Not Yet the End" (Winter 1941 ...
Graedon, Alena
(? - ) US author whose Dystopia The Word Exchange (2014), set in a recognizable Near Future New York, posits a coercively immersive Internet with most of the population glued to "Memes" (see Meme), and physical books almost entirely destroyed. The protagonist Anana's father, while editing the last ...
Larsen, Reif
(1980- ) US author currently resident in Scotland whose first novel, The Selected Works of T S Spivet (2009), is an example of postmodern Fantastika whose jagged edges are smoothed and warmed over by the delightfulness of the eponymous twelve-year old protagonist. The metaphysical intensity of his engagement with maps and measurement extracts him from a Montana family romance into a ...
Atlantis
The legend of Atlantis, an advanced civilization on a continent (or large Island) in the middle of the Atlantic which was overwhelmed by some geological cataclysm, has its earliest extant source in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias (circa 350 BCE). The legend can be seen as a parable of the Fall of Man, and writers who have since embroidered the story have generally shown less interest in the cataclysm itself than ...
Pseudonyms
Reasons for using pseudonyms are very various, but almost always involve concealment. So obvious is this that it might seem to go without saying; but in fact many reference books altogether disregard the factor of concealment in their use of the term, and often designate as pseudonyms variations upon real names made to heighten impact (C J Cherry, for instance, writes as C J Cherryh), or to shorten or simplify a spelling (Francis A Jaworski writes as Frank ...
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 ...