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Friday 2 June 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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Cole, Adrian
(1949- ) UK author, most of whose books lace fantasy and horror venues with sf devices, but which in the final analysis read essentially as fantasies. He began publishing work of genre interest with "Wired Tales" for Dark Horizons #6 in Summer 1973, and several stories soon followed about a not entirely unusual Cursed Warrior named The Voidal, culminating perhaps in The Coming of the Voidal (1977 chap), and all revised, with some new content, ...
Devo
US art-rock group, founded in the 1960s by Gerald Casale (1948- ) and Bob Lewis (1947- ). Their first album took the first part of its title from the cry of the beast-men in WELLS's Island of Doctor Moreau (via the 1933 film Island of Lost Souls): Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978). It is a spiky and exhilarating piece of music which often succeeds in wrong-footing the listener, as ...
Gibson, Walter B
(1897-1985) US newspaper magician, journalist, editor and author whose first published work was a puzzle piece called "Enigma" for St Nicholas Magazine in 1905, the first of a huge number of puzzles and other articles relating to magic published over the next 80 years, the grand total of this and other periodical work coming to at least 6800 pieces, not counting at least 2000 published crossword puzzles; Gibson's interest in the occult and various Games led to a ...
Bell, Neil
Preferred pseudonym of UK author Stephen Southwold (1887-1964), born Stephen Henry Critten; he took the name Southwold from his birthplace in Suffolk, because he despised his father, for reasons made clear in the semi-autobiographical chapters which recur in many of his novels; though it has been stated that he changed his name to Bell by deed poll around 1930, this seems not actually to have happened. At least one posthumous volume is copyrighted "Mrs Stephen Southwald". Though he also wrote ...
Goll, Reinhold W
(1897-1993) US author of three unremarkable Space Operas for Young Adult readers. Two of these comprise the Veta sequence, beginning with The Visitors from Planet Veta (1961). [JC]
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 ...