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 ...
Computer Role Playing Game
Term used to describe a form of Videogame derived from pen and paper Role Playing Games. This entry only deals with the single player variant; the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, a related form in which many individuals share the same virtual world, is considered under Online Worlds. Computer Role Playing Games ...
Brain in a Box
The disembodied brain in a box (or in a jar, a vat, or some more elaborate laboratory apparatus) is a recurring trope, most frequently in the Horror in SF context. Well-known instances are H P Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness" (August 1931 Weird Tales); E E Smith's's Galactic Patrol (September 1937-February 1938 Astounding; ...
Amazing Science Stories
UK Pulp magazine published in Manchester by Pembertons in 1951. Two unmemorable issues appeared, largely reprints from #2 and #3 of the Australian Thrills Incorporated, but also two stories reprinted from Super Science Stories, a UK edition of which had been published by Pembertons. [BS/PN] links / ...
Eldershaw, M Barnard
Collaborative pseudonym used by Australian authors and critics Marjorie Faith Barnard (1897-1987) and Flora Sydney Patricia Eldershaw (1897-1956) for four well-regarded mainstream novels 1929-1937; nearly all the writing was done by Barnard – who had published a solo book as early as 1920 – with Eldershaw being the critical editorial eye. Barnard long claimed that a fifth novel, also published as by M Barnard Eldershaw and the most distinguished work under this pseudonym, was by her ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...