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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 ...
Alarcón y Ariza, Pedro Antonio de
(1833-1891) Spanish author, initially famous for travel writings, though now know mainly as the author of El sombrero de tres picos (1874; trans anon as The Three-Cornered Hat 1891), a novella based on a traditional ballad which became famous after Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) composed a ballet in 1919 based on the tale. Alarcón is of some sf interest for his early novel, "El amigo de la muerte" (1852 El eco de occidente; trans Mrs Francis J A Darr as ...
Sullivan, Robert
(1953- ) US journalist and author, most of whose work has been nonfiction, much of it associated with Life magazine, where he served as a senior editor for many years. Of sf interest are two spoof "nonfiction" studies, both elaborately arrayed with confabulated documentary evidence about their subject matters. The first, The Flight of the Reindeer: The True Story of Santa Claus and his Christmas Mission (1996), is constructed in part around a ...
God Game
Term used to describe a form of Videogame in which the player has the powers of an actual or metaphorical god, as well as some of the limitations attributed to such entities by deist religions. A God Game will typically contain a simulation of a world, a nation or (more prosaically) a business, inhabited by mortals (or employees) conducting their own independent lives. The player is given specific powers – for example, the ability to cause divine earthquakes ...
Popov, Alexander
(1954- ) Bulgarian sf author and publisher who has won awards for his short fiction, some written under the pseudonym Al Vickers, some translated into foreign languages. His sf novel «Provinzia Pet» ["Province Five"] as by Al Vickers was contracted in 1991 for publication in Russian translation in Russia. His recently established Gemini publishing house began, in 1991, to publish a fortnightly sf magazine, Drugi Svetove ["Other Worlds"]. Popov wrote the ...
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 ...