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Tuesday 8 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 ...
Tracy, Louis
(1863-1928) Irish-born UK journalist and author, born Patrick Joseph Treacy, in UK from early childhood, almost certainly changed his name legally before 1888; his birth name and place of birth have been examined by Steve Holland in his Bear Alley blog [see links below]. He is best remembered for The Final War: A Story of the Great Betrayal (28 December 1895-1 August 1896 Pearson's Magazine; 1896), ...
Pickersgill, Joshua, Jr
(1780-1818) UK army officer and author of The Three Brothers: A Romance (1803 4vols), an exorbitantly lurid Gothic novel whose supernatural elements (the Devil is a character) are of no sf interest. It should be noted, however, that when the Devil gives the Antihero protagonist a new body while retaining the old, the Clichés of metamorphosis has been sidestepped, and the reader encounters a very early instance of ...
Stead, C K
(1932- ) New Zealand poet, academic and author whose acerbic, well crafted novels have received considerable praise. Of some sf interest is his first: Smith's Dream (1971; rev 1973) depicts a tyrannical Dystopia, and a Near Future Vietnam-like conflict set in New Zealand, with an ending harshened in the revised edition; it was filmed as Sleeping Dogs (1977) (see ...
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Film (2001). Warner Brothers/Dreamworks/Amblin Entertainment. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Steven Spielberg, based on a screen story by Ian Watson itself based on the story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" (December 1969 Harper's Bazaar) by Brian W Aldiss, with uncredited contributions from Stanley Kubrick. Cast includes Brendan ...
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 ...