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Friday 17 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 ...
Wheeler, Lorraine
(1932- ) Australian author whose fiction has been directly primarily towards younger readers; Pretend It's Christmas (1984) is a Young Adult tale about the Near Future Invasion of a peaceful enclave. [JC]
Eakins, William
(1944- ) US civil servant who specialized in environmental health issues, and author of Key West, 2720 A.D. (1989), a novel set in Florida in a gay context (see Gender; Sex); this life is threatened. Eakins should not be confused with the short-fiction author William R Eakin (see Neverworlds). [JC]
Pantell, Dora
(1915-1996) US teacher, technical writer and author of fiction for children, best known for her continuation of Ellen MacGregor's Miss Pickerell series of tales about Lavinia Pickerell, a highly adventurous New England spinster. Pantell wrote most her contributions as with MacGregor, who had left copious notes for continuations of the sequence, in which Pickerell applies her rigorous intellect to uncovering the scientific premises underlying ...
Walters, Guy
(1971- ) UK historian and author, much of whose work has focused on the years leading up to World War Two and on the war itself. Of sf interest is The Leader (2003), a Hitler Wins tale set in an early 1940s Britain ruled by Oswald Mosley (1896-1980); justice triumphs in the end. Similar scenarios were examined with somewhat greater care in Jo Walton's ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...