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Sunday 19 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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Lynch, David
(1946-2025) US actor, artist and musician and primarily filmmaker whose work extended Surrealism into mainstream Cinema and Television. Lynch's films tend to examine the uneasy truce between rationality and the unconscious mind by revealing how intimations of Sex, Identity and death make themselves felt in modern American communities. The term Lynchian was defined by David Foster ...
Weston, George
(1880-1965) UK author whose family emigrated to the USA in 1888/1890; active in the magazines from the publication of "Alicia and Bob the Canary" (October 1904 Everybody's Magazine) or earlier until 1945. He is best known for His First Million Women (1934; vt Comet "Z" 1934), an early version of the sf topos where sterility (see Disaster) affects all but one man – an Adam and Eve-associated ...
Besant, Walter
(1836-1901) UK author known primarily for his work outside the sf field; one of the main founders of the Society of Authors in 1884. His early novels were written in collaboration with James Rice (1843-1882); their The Case of Mr Lucraft and Other Tales (coll 1876 2vols) contains several fantasies, including the novella-length "The Case of Mr Lucraft" (27 October-10 November 1875 The World) about a man who leases out his appetite. The Revolt of Man (1882 anon) ...
Kirk, Laurence
Pseudonym of Scottish naval officer and author Eric Andrew Simson (1895-1956), who was in active service during World War One and also published under his own name. His fiction as Kirk includes one sf novel, The Gale of the World (1948), set in a Near Future England where a scientific Discovery threatens the stability of the world. [JC]
Wharton, William
Pseudonym of US teacher, painter and author Albert William du Aime (1925-2008), mostly in Paris from about 1960. Though his real name was known for many years, it was not revealed publicly until late in life, so that his pseudonymous writing career could be conducted separately from his career as a painter. Best known for Fabulations with a Magic-Realist colouring, like Birdy (1979), whose protagonist's longing 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 ...