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Wednesday 19 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.
Site updated on 18 February 2025
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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Preston, Peter
(1938-2018) UK journalist, editor and author, active in the UK newspaper world from 1959, most prominently as editor of the Guardian 1975-1995; he remained active in executive and other functions with the Guardian group of newspapers, and published actively until his death. Preston is of sf interest for two novels. 51st State (1998) is a Near Future Satire in which an increasingly dysfunctional Britain leaves ...
Boyle, T Coraghessan
(1948- ) US author who sometimes signs his more recent work as T C Boyle; very much better known for his non-fantastic fiction – novels like World's End (1987) or The Road to Wellville (1993) – than for his relatively rare (and recent) sf. Several stories to be found in After the Plague: Stories (coll 2001) are of sf interest, including the Post-Holocaust title story, which is set ...
Bisson, Terry
(1942-2024) US author who also worked as a New York publishing copy-writer. His first novel, Wyrldmaker: A Heroic Romance (1981), is a too rapidly told but intermittently dazzling Generation Starship tale told in the guise of a heroic fantasy (see also World Ship). With his second, Talking Man (1986), he came into his full powers as a novelist whose narrative voice was urgently and lucidly that ...
Wouk, Herman
(1915-2019) US playwright and author who began his career around 1935 writing Radio dramas. His first published book, The Man in the Trench Coat (coll 1941), contains plays: the first of them, The Man in the Trench Coat (first performed Fall 1940 Barbion Plaza Hotel, New York) is a fantasy whose Jewish protagonist is haunted by a ghost at the beginning of World War Two. A second play of interest, ...
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 ...