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Friday 7 February 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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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Wells, Jess
(1955- ) US author whose fiction has generally been nonfantastic; she began to publish work of genre interest with "The Succubus" in Embracing the Dark (anth 1991) edited by Eric Garber. Her sf novel, AfterShocks (1992), is set in Near Future San Francisco (see California), where the effects of a devastating earthquake (see Disaster) are played out ...
Thomson, Rupert
(1955- ) UK author, active from around 1987, the abrupt expressionist shiftings of whose novels sometimes allow them to be seen in terms of Fantastika, though this can be a semblance, and an occasional tint of allegory can signal the Mainstream Writer of SF. The infant Moses, protagonist of his first novel, Dreams of Leaving (1987), is floated down a river towards ...
Coon, Horace C
(1897-1961) US author, usually of nonfiction on cultural and political and business issues, in whose 43,000 Years Later (1958) Aliens come to a Ruined Earth, become intrigued by the civilization that had destroyed itself 43,000 years before (see Ruins and Futurity), and, through records, explore the twentieth-century world to Satirical effect. They spend ...
O'Toole, George
(1936-2001) US specialist in espionage – he worked for the American Central Intelligence Agency 1966-1969 – and author of a very Near Future thriller, The Agent on the Other Side (1973), in which America and the USSR are at odds. [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 ...