SF Encyclopedia Home Page
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
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Spinrad, Norman
(1940- ) US author, born in New York – where he set some impressive fiction – but resident in France for many years; married to N Lee Wood (1990-2005). He began publishing sf with "The Last of the Romany" in Analog for 1963, assembled with other early work as The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde (coll 1970), the title story being among the most successful of the attempts made by various ...
Strandberg, Mats
(1976- ) Swedish journalist and author, most of whose novels to date have been fantasy, including the Engelfors Trilogy beginning with Cirkeln (2011; trans Per Carlsson as The Circle 2012), all with Sara Bergmark Elfgren (1980- ). He is of sf interest for Slutet (2018; trans Judith Kiros as The End 2020), which is set in a ...
Technothriller
A common term, used in this encyclopedia to designate a tale which, though it often makes use of sf devices, in fact occupies an undisplaced, essentially mundane narrative world, one that – during the years when technothrillers were most popular, from the 1950s to the 1970s – was commonly seen through a Cold War lens. Though usually taking place in the present day, technothrillers may be set in the Near Future and invoke ...
MacGregor, Richard
Pseudonym of UK screenwriter and author Macgregor Urquhart (variously Urquhardt) (1916-1967). As Richard MacGregor he published several routine Genre-SF novels: The Day a Village Died (1963), Taste of the Temptress (1963), Horror in the Night (1963), The Creeping Plague (1963), The Deadly Sun (1964), The Threat (1964) and The First of the Last (1964). [JC/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 ...