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Tuesday 15 October 2024
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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Coover, Robert
(1932-2024) US author who established a considerable reputation with his novels, in which Fabulation and political scatology mix fruitfully. His work could be seen to represent a Postmodernist intensification of the same milieu excoriated by Richard Condon; at times both authors seem to be describing a nightmare dream of orgy-choked life in the Late Roman Empire (see ...
Skelton, Robin
(1925-1997) UK-born poet and author, in Canada from 1962, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Angel" in 1984 (magazine not identified). He was extremely prolific both as a poet and academic. Of sf interest is Fire of the Kindred (1987), a Prehistoric SF tale set at time just before the matriarchal world depicted (see Feminism; Women in SF) is about be forcibly ...
Gerhardi, William
(1895-1977) Russian-born author of English parents, in the UK from before World War One; in later, inactive years he gave his name as Gerhardie, apparently in homage to an earlier more prestigious spelling. He is best known for works outside the sf field like Futility (1922) and The Polyglots (1925). His End-of-the-World novel Jazz and Jasper: The Story of Adams and Eva (1928; vt ...
Mercier, Lewis Page
(1820-1875) UK minister, schoolmaster and translator, signing as Mercier Lewis and Louis Mercier; it has been surmised that a combination of career and financial difficulties forced him into the translation trade, and these pressures plus ill health may explain the occasional shoddiness of (and frequent cuts to) his translations of Jules Verne novels; the frequency with which they were reprinted remains anomalous. The degree to which his translations were ...
Sawyer, Jamie
(1979- ) UK barrister and author whose work to date consists almost exclusively of contributions to his Lazarus Universe Military SF sequences. In the first of these, the Lazarus War series beginning with The Lazarus War: Artefact (2015), the chief ongoing protagonist Captain Conrad Harris of the Simulant Operations Programme undergoes repeated deaths leading his team in suicide missions over various locations ...
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 ...