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Friday 7 October 2022
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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Williams, Nick Boddie
(1906-1992) US newspaperman – he was with the Los Angeles Times 1931-1971, serving as its chief editor from 1958 – and author who contributed short Genre SF stories to various Slicks; he reported having published his first sf story pseudonymously in Weird Tales in the late 1920s, but could recall neither title nor pseudonym. The Atom Curtain (1956 dos) is set in a thoroughly unusual Post-Holocaust America, 170 years after an atomic barrier has isolated it from the rest of the world. ...
Conn, Phoebe
Working name of US author Phoebe Ingwalson (1941- ), who specializes in the romance market, and whose Beyond the Stars (1988) and Starfire (1994) are undemanding sf romances set in Space Opera venues. [JC]
Pinkwater, Daniel M
(1941- ) US author whose many stories for children and Young Adult readers from 1970 have as well attracted large adult audiences for their surreal wit, their supple and astringent wisdom and (for sf readers in particular) the wry hilarity of their use of sf venues and themes. After several non-genre works as Manus Pinkwater (a form of his name which appears only in books of the 1970s), he began writing tales of genre interest with Wizard Crystal (1973) and Magic Camera ...
Allen, Johannes
(1916-1973) Danish journalist and author of popular fiction and film scripts from about 1941. Among his few sf titles the best known is Data for din død (1970; trans Marianne Helweg as Data for Death 1971), which tells of a criminal organization whose acquisition of advanced Computer techniques permits it to blackmail people with information about their time of death. [ND]
Cohen, Barney
Working name of US author Bernard Halsband Cohen (1944- ), whose first novel of genre interest was The Night of the Toy Dragons (1977). The Taking of Satcon Station (1982) with Jim Baen, the first of two Asher Bockhorn sf thrillers, is an engagingly over-the-top application of private-eye idioms and plots (Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon [1930] being much in evidence) to near space, the eponymous satellite being the focus for the climax. Blood on the Moon (1984), ...
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 and one Semiprozine Hugo for his self-produced news magazine, Ansible (which see). His one ...