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Friday 17 January 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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Schwartz, Julius
(1915-2004) US agent and editor, initially involved in sf Fandom (though he never lost interest in fan activities), and later in Comics. Schwartz met his lifelong friend and colleague Mort Weisinger at a meeting of the Scienceers sf group in 1931. Together in 1932 they published what may have been the first true Fanzine, The Time Traveller, and also the later fanzine ...
Thought-Variant
Term introduced by F Orlin Tremaine in the December 1933 issue of Astounding, describing an idea-centred type of story he aimed to include in each issue henceforth. These "thought-variant" stories, as distinct from the action-adventure sf tradition of the Pulp magazine, should each develop an idea that "has been slurred over or passed by in many, many stories". The same issue carried Tremaine's first ...
Edge, The
UK A4-size review-and-comment Semiprozine, somewhat left field, with a discerning interest in indie culture and art, but which also carried alternative and experimental fiction influenced by the Michael Moorcock-era New Worlds and by the British music and culture magazine The Face. It was published and edited by journalist David Clark (until 2001 under his alias Graham Evans) since ...
Delap's F & SF Review
US critical Magazine (1975-1978) edited by Richard Delap and published in California by Frederick Patten. 30 issues. Begun in April 1975, Delap's F & SF Review was a monthly magazine devoted to reviews of new (or newly reprinted) American fantasy and sf books; it also contained a full listing of each month's US publications. It was one of a number of such magazines to appear, aimed primarily at libraries, but was ...
Gay, Anne
(1952- ) UK teacher and author, married to Stan Nicholls (1949- ), who began publishing sf with "Wishbone" in Gollancz-Sunday Times Best SF Stories (anth 1987) edited anonymously; she has used her married name Anne Nicholls for later short fiction. Her first novel, Mindsail (1990) – like all her works it is a Planetary Romance – promisingly describes an alien planet to ...
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 ...