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Tuesday 8 October 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.
Site updated on 7 October 2024
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Coover, Robert
(1932-2024) US author who established a considerable reputation with his novels, in which Fabulation and political scatology mix fruitfully. His work could be seen to represent a Postmodernist intensification of the same milieu excoriated by Richard Condon; at times both authors seem to be describing a nightmare dream of orgy-choked life in the Late Roman Empire (see ...
Service, Robert W
(1874-1958) UK-born poet and author, in Canada (mostly in the Yukon Territory) between 1896 and 1912, where much of his exceedingly popular verse was set, the most famous of his collections being Songs of a Sourdough (coll 1907) and Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (coll 1912); the not entirely fortunate influence of his poetry – when read aloud, as usual – can still be registered in the sf Poetry of a century later. After 1912, ...
Cummings, Ray
Working name of US author Raymond King Cummings (1887-1957), writer of over 600 identified stories under various names in various genres, about 350 of them between 1935 and 1942; it is estimated he probably wrote at least 750 tales in all. He was one of the few writers active during the heyday of US Pulp-magazine sf (1930-1950) to have begun his career before Hugo Gernsback launched Amazing in 1926. One of ...
Kainen, Ray
Usual pseudonym of US author Ray Kainulainen (? - ), who also published his erotic sf (see Sex) as by Ray Kalnen. His work – all of it released within a four-year period – was sharply told and occasionally witty, as in the fantasticated parody of Terry Southern's Candy (1964) in A Sea of Thighs (1968), or per the punning title of his last novel, ...
Out of This World Adventures
1. US Pulp magazine. Two issues, July 1950 and December 1950, published by Avon Periodicals; edited by Donald A Wollheim. The first issue included an impressive line-up of authors: A Bertram Chandler, Ray Cummings, Lester del Rey, Kris Neville, Mack ...
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 ...