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Friday 29 September 2023
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 25 September 2023
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Colebatch, Hal
(1945-2019) Australian lawyer, the third son of the Australian politician Sir Hal Colebatch (1872-1953), and author of much nonfiction written from a conservative point of view. His career as a fiction writer was long restricted to the contribution of various Ties to Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars Shared World enterprise, beginning with "The Colonels' Tiger" in Man-Kzin Wars VII (anth ...
Counterfactual
Item of Terminology sometimes used to denote the Alternate History subgenre, thus avoiding the usual sf term. This avoidance may indicate either dislike of the conventional but grammatically awkward phrase "alternate history" or – regrettably often – an attempt to distance "respectable" or "literary" use of this traditional sf technique from science fiction itself. A narrative described as counterfactual will ...
Grzimek, Martin
(1950- ) German author whose sf novel, Die Beschattung (1989; trans Breon Mitchell as Shadowlife 1991), is set in a Near Future world where life has been radically undermined by an environmental cataclysm (see Ecology); the protagonist of the sparsely eloquent tale works in the Central Institute for Biographics, which is dedicated to sustaining something ...
Hay, John
Working name of Australian author and farmer John Warwick Dalrymple-Hay (1928- ). In his sf novel, The Invasion (1968), World War Three begins after a US test missile devastates China, whose retaliation includes a nuclear attack on the coastal cities of Australia. Inland survivors band together to resist the invaders. [JC]
Morris, James
(? - ) UK author of The Escapist (2005), a Near Future thriller set in a Cyberpunk-tinted venue, which the street-wise hero has little real difficulty in negotiating as he tracks down a roge AI. [JC]
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 ...