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Saturday 22 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.
Site updated on 21 January 2022
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Wilson, Kai Ashante
(? - ) US author who studied at the 2010 San Diego Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop as the Octavia E Butler scholar, and began to publish work of genre interest with "«Légendaire.»" in Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars (anth 2013 ebook) edited by Nisi Shawl. Wilson's first book-length work was The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps (2015), a richly told seeming Science-Fantasy adventure in which a small band ...
Kemp, Earl
(1929-2020) US editor and publisher, father of Earl Terry Kemp; an important figure in American Fandom from the 1950s on, who was one of the founders of Advent: Publishers (which see) in 1956. Kemp was an associate of William L Hamling (whom see for details), an association which caused his imprisonment. It is now acknowledged that he edited The Science Fiction Novel: Imaginative and Social Criticism (anth 1959), previously ascribed to Basil Davenport; but he is much better known for his ...
Empson, William
(1906-1984) UK literary critic, theorist, poet and author, perhaps the most brilliant (and cantankerous) British thinker about literature in the twentieth century, most famously for Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930; rev 1947), published just after he was stripped of his degree and normal academic career by Cambridge University for a sexual misdemeanour (a condom was discovered in his rooms), and for Some Versions of Pastoral (1935), whose analysis of "Christ and scapegoat" as a liminal Antihero ...
Stephens, Christopher P
(1943- ) US book-dealer, publisher and bibliographer, founder in 1987 of Ultramarine Publishing Co, Inc, a Small Press whose fiction output has concentrated on releasing trade publisher's printed sheets in fine bindings. As a bibliographer from 1987 to 1992 he compiled Ultramarine checklists – some with revised/updated editions – on several authors, including James P Blaylock (with Tom Joyce), Samuel R Delany, Philip K Dick, Thomas M Disch, K W Jeter (with Tom ...
Borderlands [game]
Videogame (2009). Gearbox Software (GS). Designed by Matthew Armstrong. Platforms: PS3, Win, XB360 (2009); Mac (2010). / Borderlands is an "action RPG" (see Computer Role Playing Games), much influenced by First Person Shooters but in essence resembling a science-fictional variant of the hack and slash fantasy game Diablo (1997). Players wander the blasted deserts of the planet Pandora, performing missions for assorted patrons, battling (often randomly generated) enemies and looting their ...
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 and one Semiprozine Hugo for his self-produced news magazine, Ansible (which see). His one ...