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Saturday 1 April 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.
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Thomas, D M
(1935-2023) UK poet and author who made use of sf themes most explicitly in such early Poetry as "The Head-Rape" in New Worlds for March 1968 and the two-part "Computer 70: Dreams & Lovepoems" (March-April 1970 New Worlds), a sequence assembled with other poetry of interest in Logan Stone (coll 1970); or the later "S. F." (in The Umbral Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, anth ...
Mason, F Van Wyck
(1901-1978) US author, who sometimes gave his name variously as F V W Mason, Van Wyck Mason, Frank Van Wyck Mason and Frank W Mason, and who published as well under at least two pseudonyms, Geoffrey Coffin and Ward Weaver; in active service during World War One and World War Two. Though now best known as a writer of historical novels with an emphasis on romantic adventure plots, he was initially prolific in shorter forms, ...
McDonald, Ian
(1960- ) UK author, a resident of Northern Ireland, who began publishing sf with "The Islands of the Dead" for Extro in April/May 1982, assembled, with other short work, as Empire Dreams (coll 1988); later stories were assembled as Speaking in Tongues (coll 1992); he is not a prolific story writer, though "The Djinn's Wife" (July 2006 Asimov's) won a Hugo award in ...
O'Neill, Henry J
(1859-1926) Welsh-born lawyer and author, in the US from 1869; his sf novel, The Travels of John Wryland [for full title see Checklist] (1903), is a Fantastic Voyage tale centring on a Lost Race in Tibet, an authoritarian Dystopia viewed with disfavour by Wryland. [JC]
Synaesthesia
Item of Terminology relating to Perception, which in normal use denotes association or cross-referencing between the senses, so that (to take a commonplace example) the colour orange may evoke the smell of oranges. The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was fond of such metaphorical sense-associations. In the nonfantastic crime novel Opening Night (1951; vt Night at the Vulcan) by Ngaio Marsh ...
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 ...