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Monday 29 May 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.
Site updated on 29 May 2023
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Lessing, Doris
(1919-2013) Persian- (Iranian-) born author, in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) 1925-1949, in UK subsequently. Her long career – which eventually earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 – can be roughly divided into two broad periods. She began publishing stories in 1948, and from that date until the end of the 1960s she was best known for searching mimetic novels which acutely anatomized a range of topics, from the post-colonial role of ...
Hickam, Homer H, Jr
(1943- ) US engineer for NASA and author, whose memoir/novel, Rocket Boys: A Memoir (1998; vt October Sky 1999), filmed as October Sky (1999), intensely and movingly captures the longing for space felt by young Americans (not always male), a longing composed in part of frustrated knowledge (Germany had already developed the V2) and in part through the expansionist dreams advocated in sf journals like ...
Anderson, Dwayne
(1982- ) Canadian author whose first sf novel, Alien Conflict (2002) features an Alien attempt to prevent World War Four on Earth; his second is Hellfire Apocalypse (2004). [JC]
Coneheads
Film (1993). Paramount. Directed by Steve Barron, produced Lorne Michaels. Written by Tom Davis & Aykroyd and Bonnie Turner & Terry Turner. Cast includes Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Michael McKean and Laraine Newman. 82 minutes. Colour. / This gentle and very lightweight Satire, an intermittently amusing comedy, is based on sketches first performed on the US television show Saturday Night Live. Two Aliens (Aykroyd and ...
Shadow, The
This crime-fighting character made his debut in 1930 as narrator of the US Radio programme Detective Story. The opening lines soon became famous: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" In 1937 the very popular programme became The Shadow and continued through well over 600 episodes until 1954, with Orson Welles in the star role 1937-1938; among its many scriptwriters were Alfred ...
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 ...