SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 24 September 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 18 September 2023
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Sissons, Michael
(1934-2018) UK literary agent from 1959 until his death, initially at the A D Peters agency which after a 1988 merger became Peters, Fraser and Dunlop (PFD). In the early 1960s he edited three reprint Anthologies, that of greatest sf interest being Asleep in Armageddon: An Anthology of Science Fiction Stories (anth 1962), with tales by Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Fredric ...
Kiss Me Deadly
Film (1955). Parklane. Produced and directed by Robert Aldrich. Written by A I Bezzerides, based remotely on Kiss Me, Deadly (1952) by Mickey Spillane. Cast includes Maxine Cooper, Albert Dekker, Chloris Leachman, Ralph Meeker, Gaby Rogers and Paul Stewart. 105 minutes. Black and white. / This extraordinary film noir, now recognized as one of the greatest of its period, substitutes a boxful of radioactivity – a kind of ...
Indick, Ben
(1923-2009) US fan, involved as a fan with American sf from before World War Two, and a member of First Fandom; he began publishing fiction of genre interest with "The Road to Dunwich" for Ibid in 1973, and remained moderately active as a short fiction writer for three decades. He is of sf interest as well for his nonfiction, which includes The Drama of Ray Bradbury (1977; rev vt Ray Bradbury: Dramatist 1989), and ...
Butler, William Francis
(1838-1910) Irish soldier and author whose military involvement in the Riel Rebellion in western Canada resulted in his recommending the creation of what would eventually become the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was in active service, with the rank of colonel, when he published anonymously a Battle of Dorking tale, The Invasion of England: Told Twenty Years After (1882) as By an Old Soldier, in which Germany mounts an ...
Wolverton, Dave
(1957-2022) US author who also wrote as David Farland, and who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Sky Is an Open Highway" in The Leading Edge for Fall 1985. He began to enter literary contests in that year, winning a few small competitions and then the Best of the Year award in the Writers of the Future Contest for 1986, with "On My Way to Paradise", which appeared in ...
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, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its listing of Pseudonyms. ...