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Friday 22 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.
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Kohout, Pavel
(1928- ) Czech poet, playwright, author and, since his emigration in 1978, émigré activist; his relations with post-Communist Czech culture have not been easy, and he remains in Vienna. Though his early poetry had been pro-Communist, his politics changed and his work remained unpublished in Czechoslovakia in the period 1968-1989; some was published there in 1990. His sf novel, which deals with the political persecution of a man who can control ...
Calder, Natasha
(? - ) Scottish author who attended Clarion West in 2018 (see Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop) and began to publish work of genre interest with "Wife Cro" in Lackington's, Fall 2019 (anth 2019 ebook) edited by Ranylt Richildis. Her first novel, The Offset (2021) with Emma Szewczak, writing together as Calder Szewczak, is set in a ...
Irving, Washington
(1783-1859) The father of the US short story and one of the first US professional authors, Irving is an important link in the transfer of the stories of German Romanticism to American soil. Although he studied as a lawyer and briefly pursued that career, his heart was always in writing, and he began publishing essays as early as 1802 in the New York Morning Chronicle, the first of his numerous pseudonyms being Jonathan Oldstyle. He soon produced a number of humorous satirical essays, and ...
Edelstein, Scott
(1954- ) US editor, poet and author, active almost exclusively in the 1970s, who began to publish work of genre interest with "An Unpleasant End" in New Worlds 6: The Science Fiction Quarterly (anth 1973; vt New Worlds #5 1974) edited by Michael Moorcock and Charles Platt. He has published no novels. His one Anthology, Future Pastimes ...
Gladden, Washington
(1836-1918) US clergyman noted for his progressive views on such issues as union rights and racial segregration; of his many books, mostly on religious topics, Santa Claus on a Lark and Other Christmas Stories (coll 1890) contains seasonal fantasies, and The Cosmopolis City Club (January-?March 1893 Century Magazine; 1893), in which a Utopia is created through fruitful gatherings of a wide range of concerned citizens of the ...
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 ...