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Sunday 19 May 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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Corman, Roger
(1926-2024) US film-maker, a number of whose films are sf. Born in Los Angeles, he graduated in engineering from Stanford University in 1947, and spent a period in the US Navy and a term at Oxford University before going to Hollywood, where he began to write screenplays; his first sale was Highway Dragnet (1954), a picture he coproduced. He soon formed his own company and launched his spectacularly low-budget career. From 1956 he was regularly associated with ...
Pohl, Frederik
(1919-2013) US man-of-letters and author, professionally involved in the sf field as an editor, literary agent, fan and author since his teens, his first published piece being a poem, "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna" (October 1937 Amazing) as by Elton V Andrews, and his first story proper – the first of well over 200 in an active career of more than seven decades (see Longevity in Writers) – being "Before the ...
Ramseyer, Edwin
(1896-? ) Swiss author whose Airmen Over the Suburb (trans Nora Bickley from manuscript 1939) is a Future War novel in which Paris is attacked from the air. [JC]
Shanks, Edward
(1892-1953) UK editor, poet and author in various genres whose Scientific Romance, The People of the Ruins: A Story of the English Revolution and After (16 October 1919-12 February 1920 Land and Water; 1920), seems clearly to reflect the aftermath of World War One (Shanks, who was invalided from front line combat in 1915, was a war poet). The novel applies ...
Whitmore, Charles
(1945- ) US author whose Winter's Daughter: The Saying of Signe Ragnhilds-Datter (1984) is set in the Near Future at some point after a nuclear World War Three has failed to end civilization entirely; various strategies for survival are tested in Africa, America and (it is from here that the protagonist speaks) Norway. [JC]
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 ...