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Friday 17 January 2025
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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MF DOOM
(1971-2020) The most widely used and best-known pseudonym (always styled in all capitals) of UK-born rapper Dumile Thompson, in the US from childhood, and a enduring influence on underground hip-hop. His mask-wearing stage persona derived from the Marvel Comics character Victor Von Doom (Doctor Doom), upon whom he based another of his pseudonyms, Viktor Vaughn. It was under this name that he recorded his sf album, Vaudeville Villain (2003), ...
Fantast, The
UK fanzine initially published from Eastleigh, Hampshire, by C S Youd (John Christopher) and from issue #10 (April 1941) by Douglas Webster from Aberdeen, Scotland, with John F Burke (Jonathan Burke) as co-editor for #9 (March 1941) and #10. UK quarto (10 x 8 in), duplicated. Fourteen issues from April 1939 to July 1942; monthly until #7 (October 1939), after which the schedule became irregular. / Typically for its ...
Bennett, Gary L
(1940- ) US physicist and author, author of at least two technical papers in collaboration with Robert L Forward, and of many pieces attacking American fundamentalism in its attempts to dismantle Evolutionary science; his sf novel, The Star Sailors (1980), deals with the conflict between a peaceful galactic civilization which is threatened by another, divisive galactic culture. ...
Ketterer, David
(1942- ) UK academic and author (with a DPhil from the University of Sussex); based for many years at Concordia University, Montreal; now in the UK. His New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature (1974) interestingly, though utilizing a rather academic terminology, links apocalyptic themes in US Mainstream literature with similar obsessions in ...
Heywood, Victor D
(? - ) US author of an unremarkable Space Opera adventure, Prison Planet (1974; vt Alpha Star 1980), which is a Young Adult tale whose young protagonist earns his spurs in space. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...