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Tuesday 28 November 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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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
Lytton, Edward Bulwer
(1803-1873) UK author, known as Edward Lytton Bulwer until 1838, when he was knighted, becoming Sir Edward Bulwer. He became Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1843 when he succeeded to the Knebworth estate on his mother's death, a version of his name often used. More simply, he was also known as Bulwer Lytton; the standard editions of his collected works give his name as Lord Lytton. He became Colonial Secretary in 1858-1859 (he signed the documents creating British Columbia and Queensland), and was ...
Young, Janine Ellen
(? - ) US teacher and author whose first sf novel, Cinderblock (1997) is set in a Near Future America crosshatched by Cyberspace turfs under criminal control, generating an insecurity about what is Virtual Reality and what remains "real". In her second novel, The Bridge (2000), an attempt at ...
Labyrinths
Labyrinths and mazes have a long history, and distinctions between them have long been blurred. The archetypal maze was a two-dimensional pattern, often cut in turf, to be traversed voluntarily as a kind of ritual Game. Even traditional hedge-mazes like Hampton Court's in London do not offer serious physical barriers; thus the narrator of Alasdair Gray's Five Letters from an Eastern Empire (1979 ...
Mutant
1. Variant title of the film Forbidden World (1982). / 2. Film (1983; vt Night Shadows). Film Ventures International. Directed by John Bud Cardos. Written by Peter Z Orton, Michael Jones, John C Kruize. Cast includes Cary Guffey, Wings Hauser, Bo Hopkins, Jody Medford, Lee Montgomery and Jennifer Warren. 99 minutes. Colour. / When their car is wrecked by fun-loving good ole boys, two city slickers are trapped in a ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and sf ...