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Tuesday 28 November 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.
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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
Brennan, Frederick Hazlitt
(1901-1962) US journalist, screenwriter and author, active in the first capacity from 1923, and in the second capacity between 1929 and 1963; of his novels, One of Our H Bombs Is Missing (1955) is of sf interest for its exploitation of very Near Future Cold War tensions in the story of a group of pilots who go rogue, steal a nuclear bomb, and attempt to bring about the ...
Bartlett, Vernon
(1894-1983) UK broadcaster, politician and author, who was severely disillusioned by his World War One experiences, and who served as an Independent MP 1938-1950. If I Were Dictator (1935 chap) – in the If I Were Dictator sequence, one of whose contributors was Lord Dunsany – reflected his centrist politics, and his dubiousness about dictatorships, even "benevolent". His sf novel proper, ...
Hunter, Alan [2]
(1923-2012) UK artist who is best known for his intricately detailed black-and-white ink drawings. He also painted covers in the brightly coloured Pulp tradition for the first two issues of Nebula Science Fiction published in Autumn 1952 and Spring 1953, and was credited as this magazine's art consultant. Numerous early drawings in his more typical manner appeared as interior art in ...
Kennemore, Tim
(1957- ) UK author of children's and Young Adult fiction; she was given the name "Tim" by schoolmates. Her first sf book, The Fortunate Few (1981) is typical of her sharp interest in the power structures adolescents must come to terms with, as here dramatized by its depiction of a Near Future world where gymnastics have become big business, and young athletes risk becoming depersonalized ciphers ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...