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Friday 8 December 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 ...
Kummer, Frederic Arnold
(1873-1943) US playwright, screenwriter and author, who may have begun signing his name Frederic Arnold Kummer, Sr after his son Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr began publishing around 1935. Most of his work is nonfantastic, though he wrote at least two Posthumous Fantasies [for fuller entry on Kummer, and on Posthumous Fantasy, see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. ...
Bellamy, Francis Rufus
(1886-1972) US editor and author, mostly of popular American history; he was related to the Francis Rufus Bellamy who wrote "The Pledge of Allegiance" (September 1892 Youth's Companion). In his sf novel Atta: A Novel of a Most Extraordinary Adventure (1953) a man is struck by lightning and, after shrinking (see Miniaturization) until just half an inch (12 mm) tall, combines forces with a warrior ant by the name of Atta. [JC] ...
Brown, Eric
(1960-2023) UK author who began publishing sf – after a children's play, Noel's Ark (1982 chap) – with "Krash-Bangg Joe and the Pineal-Zen Equation" for Interzone in Autumn 1987; like several further tales assembled in The Time-Lapsed Man and Other Stories (coll 1990), it is set in a future world dominated by the effects of bio-engineering and dense with information. This marriage of Cordwainer ...
McKenzie, John
(? - ) UK author of a Near Future novel, City Whitelight (1986), in which the Cities of the world have become targeted by Disasters of all sorts, from social breakdown to Pandemic; the Cyberpunk tone of the book conveys a sense that there will be no easy outcome for humanity. [JC]
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 consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and sf ...