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Tuesday 25 January 2022
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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Holden, Inez
(1903-1974) UK journalist and author, active from the early 1920s; around 1940, briefly George Orwell's partner. In 1941 she rented a garage flat from H G Wells, who evicted her when she introduced him to Orwell, soon after the publication of the latter's "Wells, Hitler and the World State" (August 1941 Horizon). She is of sf interest for Born Old, Died Young (1932), a Near Future tale describing en passant some advances in Transportation evident in 1940; the story deals with the effects on its ...
Marvel Tales
1. US Semiprozine (the first 3 issues small-Digest-size, #4 digest-size and #5 letter-size), five issues May 1934 to Summer 1935. Published by Fantasy Publications, Everett, Pennsylvania; edited by William L Crawford, who was not only the publisher but also set the type himself. Some issues were distributed with several different covers. Distribution was very limited; Marvel Tales was never generally available. Crawford was reacting to the degree of formulaic sf that was appearing in Astounding ...
Posey, Jay
(? - ) US Videogame designer and author, active in the former capacity from the late 1990s. After an involvement with two nonfantastic Tom Clancy franchises, the Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six series, he began publishing Military SF with his first series, the Legends of the Dustwalker sequence starting with Three (2013), set in a Ruined Earth America and featuring the eponymous Hero; by the end of the sequence a Keep has been founded and defended from ...
Blommedaal, Laurens J
(1956- ) Dutch-born UK author whose The Desperado of the Metal (1991) follows the adventures of a Cyberpunk protagonist through a noir Near Future Britain on the brink of extinction. [JC]
Fisher, Philip M, Jr
(1891-1973) US teacher, naval officer, author and financial auditor (in that order), whose work was restricted primarily to the Pulp magazines. His earliest sale was an article in Youth's Companion in 1916; his first fiction sale, and also his first work of sf, was "The Demise of Professor Manried" for All-Story Weekly, 18 August 1917. Here the eponymous professor is able to use electricity to amplify and harness thought waves (see Telepathy; Psi Powers). In several more of Fisher's stories, ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for November 1966, where much of his earlier criticism also appeared. This criticism, despite some studiously ...