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Saturday 21 September 2024
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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Bryher
(1894-1983) UK philanthropist and author, born Annie Winifred Ellerman; she had begun to use Bryher as a pseudonym before the publication of her first book, Region of Lutany (1914 chap) – which was poetry – and eventually took the name by deed poll; she normally wrote simply as Bryher. Her philanthropic activities extended through much of the twentieth century, and included financial support for figures as wide-ranging as Sigmund Freud preparing in 1938 to go into ...
Carnell, John
(1912-1972) UK editor, anthologist and literary agent who worked usually as John Carnell and sometimes as E J Carnell; he was known to his friends as Ted. A prominent member of UK Fandom, Carnell took over the editorship of Novae Terrae, an early Fanzine, in 1939, retitling his issues (#29-#33) New Worlds. He began his professional career as editor in 1946 when ...
Sh'mantra
Australian neo-prog band. Both their debut release Cornucopia (1998) and their follow-up double-album Formula Orange (2001) are couched in an atmospheric, pared-down musical style, mostly instrumental, a little reminiscent of Radiohead. Tracks on the latter include "Robots on the Beach" and a ten-minute version of Edgar Allan Poe called "Pit and the Pendulum". It works well, although this same style ...
Heydon, J K
(1884-1947) Australian businessman and author whose World D: A Brief Account of the Founding of Helioxenon (1935), as told to him by "Hal P. Trevarthen, Official Historian of the Superficies", describes the creation of an Under-the-Sea culture, Helioxenon; the detail is considerable, sometimes Catholic. On the jacket the novel is credited to Trevarthen. [JC]
Hitler Wins
For nearly three-quarters of a century it has been an enjoyable creative exercise to imagine what kind of Alternate History might have evolved had Germany won World War Two, and many novels and stories have been written to explore a hypothetical Axis victory; these tales almost always avoid any reference to the Final Solution, and cannot stand as examples of Holocaust Fiction, even by ...
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. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...