SF&F encyclopedia (S-S)SABERHAGEN, FRED (THOMAS) (1930- ) US writer and editor, in the latter capacity with the Encyclopedia Britannica 1967-73, for which he wrote the original entry on sf. He began publishing sf with "Volume PAA-PYX" for Gal in 1961, and was active from that date, soon releasing the first of his many novels, The Golden People (1964 dos; exp 1984), a SPACE OPERA involving PSI POWERS. As an sf author, he became known - and remains most famous - for the Berserker series of stories and novels: Berserker (coll of linked stories 1967); Brother Assassin (1969; vt Brother Berserker 1969 UK); Berserker's Planet (1975); Berserker Man (1979); The Ultimate Enemy (coll 1979; vt Berserkers: The Ultimate Enemy 1988); The Berserker Wars (coll 1981), which repeats some stories from the 1967 collection; Berserker Base * (anth 1985), a SHARED-WORLD anthology; The Berserker Throne (1985); Berserker: Blue Death (1985),Berserker Lies (coll 1991) and Berserker Kill (1993). Berserkers are interstellar killing machines, programmed to eliminate all forms of life; the sequence was devoted to increasingly sophisticated examinations of the Man- MACHINE conflict so often addressed by sf writers since the first days of space opera, but in FS's deft modernization of the hoary but useful ALIEN-monster theme the unrelenting Berserkers seem almost tangibly chill with the unlivingness of the Universe. They soon became a significant icon of GENRE SF; for instance, the machines that attack Earth in Greg BEAR's The Forge of God (1987) are clearly descended from FS's marauders.A 2nd series, the Empire of the East sequence - The Broken Lands (1968), The Black Mountains (1971) and Changeling Earth (1973; vt Ardneh's World 1988), all 3 assembled, much rev, as Empire of the East (omni 1979) - somewhat less interestingly exploited another sf/fantasy model: the post- HOLOCAUST world in which TECHNOLOGY is banned, MAGIC is reintroduced as a learnable technique ( SWORD AND SORCERY), and a vision of science is slowly renascent. The later Book of Swords sequence, set in the same Universe and using some of the same characters, similarly hovers between its sf backdrop and a fantasy foreground: The First Book of Swords (1983), The Second Book of Swords (1983) and The Third Book of Swords (1984), all assembled as The Complete Book of Swords (omni 1985). Its direct sequel, the Book of Lost Swords sequence, comprises The First Book of Lost Swords: Woundhealer's Story (1986), The Second Book of Lost Swords: Sightblinder's Story (1987) and The Third Book of Lost Swords: Stonecutter's Story (1988) - all 3 assembled as The Lost Swords: The First Triad (omni 1988) - and The Fourth Book of Lost Swords: Farslayer's Story (1989), The Fifth Book of Lost Swords: Coinspinner's Story (1989) and The Sixth Book of Lost Swords: Mindsword's Story (1990) - all 3 assembled as The Lost Swords: The Second Triad (omni 1991); and The Seventh Book of Lost Swords: Wayfinder's Story (1992) and The Last Book of Swords: Shieldbreaker's Story (1994), both assembled as The Lost Swords: Endgame (omni 1994); all of this being followed by a SHARED-WORLD anthology, An Armory of Swords *(anth 1995).FS's 3rd series of (some) sf interest, the Dracula sequence - The Dracula Tape (1975), The Holmes-Dracula File (1978), An Old Friend of the Family (1979), Thorn (1980), Dominion (1982) and A Matter of Taste (1990), A Question of Time (1992) and the RECURSIVE Seance for a Vampire (1994), which introduces Sherlock Holmes - begins as a rewrite of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) from the viewpoint of the maligned count, who generally abjures human blood and represents a strain of good vampires (or nosferatus) whose origins are rationalized in sf terms. In the first volume, which is constructed as an extended refutation of Bram Stoker's 1897 portrait of Count Dracula, the eponymous immortal demonstrates his virtue, and tells us that vampires feed on solar energy, avoiding the sun to avoid overload; in later volumes in the series, set in the present day, he becomes a kind of SUPERHERO, increasingly well armed with powers and devices. A kind of pendant to the sequence is Bram Stoker's Dracula * (1992) with James V. Hart, a film tie. A 4th series, the Pilgrim books - Pyramids (1987) and After the Fact (1988) - features the adventures of an immortal time traveller who visits first ancient Egypt and then Lincoln's USA to interfere with - or preserve - the appropriate time tracks ( ALTERNATE WORLDS).Although most of FS's energies were devoted to the composition of series, some singletons are of interest, including: the complexly moody The Veils of Azlaroc (1978); Octagon (1981), one of the first of his books in which VIRTUAL-REALITY themes begin to dominate, in this case a computer-run war game; A Century of Progress (1983), a TIME-TRAVEL tale whose complexities are, as usual in FS's work, controlled by a clear-headed style and a sure way with sf devices; The Frankenstein Papers (1986), a tale with RECURSIVE elements which repeats in short compass the same redemptive strategy earlier applied to Dracula, in this case presenting the MONSTER as a genuine alien; The White Bull (1976 Fantastic; exp 1988), in which Daedalus consorts with yet another alien, the minotaur, who is on a miscegenation mission; and The Black Throne (1990), with Roger ZELAZNY, a fantasy involving Edgar Allan POE. Game-like textures have increasingly dominated FS's work, as has a growing tendency - reminiscent of Philip Jose FARMER's Wold Newton Family books - to rewrite figures of popular mythology into heroes whose rationalized backgrounds have a certain family resemblance; the result is a sense that, perhaps rather glibly, his entire oeuvre is becoming something of a super-series game. At the heart of FS's enterprises, however, lies a professionalism and an intelligence which have produced book after book that satisfies the anticipations it arouses. [JC]Other works: The Water of Thought (1965 dos; exp 1981); The Book of Saberhagen (coll 1975); Specimens (1976); The Mask of the Sun (1979); Love Conquers All (1974-5 Gal; 1979; rev 1985); Coils (1980) with Zelazny; Earth Descended (coll 1981), containing a Berserker tale; Saberhagen: My Best (coll 1987).As Editor: A Spadeful of Spacetime (anth 1981); Pawn to Infinity (anth 1982) with Joan Saberhagen; Machines that Kill (anth 1984) with Martin H. GREENBERG.About the author: Fred Saberhagen, Berserker Man: A Working Bibliography (1991 chap) by Phil STEPHENSEN-PAYNE.See also: AUTOMATION; CYBERNETICS; GAMES AND SPORTS; GOTHIC SF; VIRTUAL REALITY; WAR. SABIN, EDWIN L(EGRAND) (1870-1952) US historian and writer whose sf novel, The City of theSun (1924), is a LOST WORLD tale set in the 19th centuryAmerican West, where a beautiful Spanish maiden must be rescued from ritual death, in the mawof a great snake; and the eponymous ancient Aztec city must,as usual in novels of this sort, bedestroyed. [JC] SACKVILLE-WEST, V(ICTORIA MARY) (1892-1962) UK writer, married to Harold NICOLSON and renowned for her creation of the garden at Sissinghurst, Kent, UK. A member of the Bloomsbury Group and a model for the title character of Virginia WOOLF's Orlando (1928), she was best known for non-genre novels like The Edwardians (1930). In Grand Canyon (1942) a victorious Germany, having won WWII, threatens the world ( HITLER WINS). [JC] SACRIFICE, THE Andrei TARKOVSKY. SADEUR, JACQUES Pseudonym of French writer Gabriel de Foigny (c1650-1692), whose La terre australe connue, c'est a dire, la description de ce pays inconnu jusqu'ici, de ses moeurs et de ses coutumes, par M. Sadeur (1676; expurgated by author 1692 as Les aventures de Jacques Sadeur dans la decouverte et le voiage de la terre australe; trans of 1692 edition as A New Discovery of Terra Incognita Australis, or the Southern World 1693) places its narrator - called Sadeur - in an Antipodean land peopled by an enlightened, humanlike race with whose precepts current European ideas contrast poorly. After many years, Sadeur falls under suspicion and escapes on a bird. [JC] SADLER, BARRY (1940-1989) US soldier and writer, author of a famous song, "Ballad of the Green Berets" (1966), which commemorated the Special Forces in Vietnam; newspaper reports indicated that he was ambushed and assassinated at his home. As an sf writer he was known exclusively for his series of military adventures starring an immortal mercenary named Casca, who is called to and serves in wars throughout history: Casca: The Eternal Mercenary (1979), #2: God of Death (1979), #3: The War Lord (1980), #4: Panzer Soldier (1980), #5: The Barbarian (1981), #6: The Persian (1982), #7: The Damned (1982), #8: Soldier of Fortune (1983), #9: The Sentinel (1983), #10: The Conquistador (1984), #11: The Legionnaire (1984), #12: The African Mercenary (1984), #13: The Assassin (1985), #14: The Phoenix (1985), #15: The Pirate (1985), #16: Desert Mercenary (1986), #17: The Warrior (1987), #18: The Cursed (1987), #19: The Samurai (1988), #20: Soldier of Gideon (1988), #21: The Trench Soldier (1989) and #22: The Mongol (1990). [JC] SADOUL, JACQUES (1934- ) French editor and writer, one of the first editors to launch sf successfully in paperback form in FRANCE; he worked first with Editions Opta and then with J'ai lu, where he founded the Science-fiction imprint and ed the Les Meilleurs Recits series of anthologies of stories translated from the US PULP MAGAZINES. He was also a founder of the Prix Apollo ( AWARDS). Hier, l'an 2000: L'illustration de science fiction des annees 30 (1973; trans as 2000 A.D.: Illustrations From the Golden Age of Science Fiction Pulps 1975 US), a book of sf ILLUSTRATION compiled by JS, mostly in black-and-white, presents a good selection of gaudy nostalgia but has no index. His Histoire de la science-fiction moderne ["Story of Modern SF"] (1973; in 2 vols 1975; rev 1984) is a lengthy and enthusiastic survey of the field, but has been upbraided for lacking critical analysis, having a pedestrian style and structure, and containing too many sweeping generalizations and personal prejudices. Two fantastic novels by JS are La Passion selon Satan ["The Passion according to Satan"] (1960) and Le Jardin de la licorne ["The Garden of the Unicorn"] (1978). [MJ/PN] SAGAN, CARL (1934- ) US astronomer, planetary scientist and author, professor of astronomy and space sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. CS played an active role in the MARS experiments carried out by Mariner 9 (1971), worked also on the Viking and Voyager projects, and was responsible for placing a message to alien life aboard the interstellar spaceship Pioneer 10 (Jupiter flyby 1973). He is co-founder and president of the Planetary Society, a very large space-interest group. For 12 years he was editor-in-chief of Icarus, a journal devoted to planetary research. From the mid-1970s, through books and pre-eminently through his 13-part PBS tv documentary series Cosmos (1980), which he wrote and presented, CS became perhaps the best known of all US scientific popularizers.His relevance to sf had been evident much earlier than that, however, through his speculations about LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; he is one of the comparatively few scientists to have given serious thought to this question. His first book was an updating of a translated 1963 book by the Russian astronomer I.S. Shklovskii; the collaboration, published under both their names, was Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966). CS's next books in this area were The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective (1973), "produced" by Jerome Agel, and Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (anth 1973), which he edited. He wrote on EVOLUTION (see also ORIGIN OF MAN) in Dragons of Eden: A Speculative Essay on the Origin of Human Intelligence (1977) - it won a Pulitzer Prize - and published a collection of speculative essays (some on PSEUDO-SCIENCE) in Broca's Brain (coll 1979), including "Science Fiction: A Personal View". There followed the HUGO-winning book of the tv series, Cosmos *(1980) - it was on the best-seller lists for over a year - and a book about comets, particularly Halley's comet, Comet (1985) with Ann Druyan (his wife).Collaboration with Druyan became the subject of much speculation in the case of CS's sf novel, Contact (1985), for which he had received a $2 million advance in 1981 when it was still unwritten. It was alleged that this novel was a collaboration with Druyan, rather than by CS alone; they countered that only the (unproduced) screenplay based on the book had been collaborative. The book itself is unexceptionable and unsensational. It invests science with high glamour in its NEAR-FUTURE story of a successful SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project; a rather good BLACK-HOLE mechanism for interstellar travel is part of the flatly characterized story, which grips in other respects, especially in its portrayal of the way SCIENTISTS think. The plot elements about a COMMUNICATION from space giving instructions for building a machine are reminiscent of the UK tv serial A FOR ANDROMEDA (1961). The book has a strong religious focus. [PN]Other works: UFOs: A Scientific Debate (anth 1973) ed with Thornton Page; Other Worlds (1975) Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record (1978) with Ann Druyan; many others.See also: ALIENS; ASTRONOMY; MATHEMATICS; POETRY; TERRAFORMING; XENOBIOLOGY. SAHA, ARTHUR W(ILLIAM) (1923- ) US editor. The Year's Best Fantasy Stories sequence, started by Lin CARTER in 1975, passed to AWS with The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: #7 (anth 1981), and continued with #8 (anth 1982), #9 (anth 1983), #10 (anth 1984), #11 (anth 1985), #12 (anth 1986), #13 (anth 1987) and #14 (anth 1988). With Donald A. WOLLHEIM (whom see for full list) AWS ed the Annual World's Best SF sequence from #8: The 1972 Annual World's Best SF (anth 1972) until the series stopped in 1990. [JC] SAINT, H(ARRY) F. (1941- ) US businessman and writer whose first novel, Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1987), filmed as MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN (1992), treats the question of INVISIBILITY as a series of problems in practical living. After the protagonist is rendered invisible by an accident at a research establishment, he confronts head-on - sometimes comically - the numerous conundrums of his state, finally becoming romantically involved with a woman who believes in ghosts. The novel thus contrasts interestingly with Thomas BERGER's Being Invisible (1987), in which the condition is likewise accepted deadpan, but in which the protagonist cannot capitalize upon his state. [JC] ST CLAIR, MARGARET (1911- ) US writer, usually under her own name, though she wrote a series of elegant stories in the 1950s as Idris Seabright and published 1 tale in 1952 as Wilton Hazzard. Her sf career began with "Rocket to Limbo" for Fantastic Adventures in 1946, and by 1950 she had published about 30 stories, most of them vigorous adventures in a strongly coloured idiom; a magazine series, the Oona and Jik tales, appeared in Startling Stories and TWS 1947-9. But, even though this early work seems at first glance conventional enough, and obedient to PULP-MAGAZINE expectations, a singularly claustrophobic pessimism could soon be felt. The Seabright stories - which appeared almost exclusively in FSF 1950-59, and for which MSC became temporarily better known than for the works published under her own name - were smoother-textured than her pulp adventures and oriented more towards FANTASY, but at the same time less daringly subversive of the central impulses of sf: to solve problems, to penetrate barriers ( CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH), to gain control. In MSC's central work, these impulses were consistently treated in terms of pathos.Her first novel, Agent of the Unknown (1952 Startling Stories as "Vulcan's Dolls"; 1956 dos), is perhaps the definitive MSC text, packing into its brief compass a remarkably complex plot whose protagonist only seems to represent the typical HERO of SPACE OPERA. Though he remembers nothing before the age of 14, and though his actions enable the human species to begin a genetic leap forwards, it is eventually revealed that he is not a SUPERMAN in the making but a severely limited ANDROID - a toy of the godlike Vulcan who appears in other MSC tales. His entrapment in a plot he cannot understand until too late, his love for a human woman who is soon killed, and his final realization that his puppet actions have released humans into a state far beyond his comprehension - all generate a sense of extraordinary constriction, to which the elegiac conclusion of the tale adds a powerful emotional glow. MSC's other early books - The Green Queen (1955 Universe Science Fiction as "Mistress of Viridis"; 1956 dos), The Games of Neith (1960 dos), Message from the Eocene (1964 dos) and Three Worlds of Futurity (coll 1964 dos) - sometimes feature more vigorous female protagonists, but all in their various ways explore similar territories. Published from the very heart of popular sf, they represent a fascinating dissent from within.Her later novels, though ostensibly more ambitious, perhaps lose some of the nightmare urgency of her early work, though both Sign of the Labrys (1963), set underground after a nuclear HOLOCAUST, and The Shadow People (1969), also set in a netherworld of caverns under the daylit world, effectively present POCKET UNIVERSES without - significantly - moving in the expected manner towards any convincing sort of breakthrough into the larger world. The Dolphins of Altair (1967) uses intelligent dolphins as an emblem of humanity's self-devastating relationship with the planet Earth, and The Dancers of Noyo (1973) overcomplicatedly deals with androids, post-holocaust California, Native Americans and political oppression. Later stories appear in Change the Sky, and Other Stories (coll 1974) and the excellent The Best of Margaret St Clair (coll 1985) ed Martin H. GREENBERG, which includes the delicately savage "Wryneck, Draw Me" (1980), the best of MSC's later anatomies of the underside of progress. [JC]About the author: Margaret St Clair (1986 chap) by Gordon BENSON Jr.See also: MYTHOLOGY; OUTER PLANETS; PERCEPTION; ROBOTS; UNDER THE SEA; WOMEN SF WRITERS. SAINT-EXUPERY, ANTOINE de (1900-1944) French writer, most famous for Le Petit Prince (1944; trans Katherine Woods as The Little Prince 1945 US). Regarded as an existential fable for adults as well as one of the century's best children's books, the story concerns a young prince who leaves his cosy ASTEROID home to explore neighbouring worlds, among them Earth. His deceptively simple adventures form a poignant SATIRE of modern society and an affirmation of the ephemeral nature of life. [PhR] St GEORGE, DAVID Joint pseudonym of UK writer David Phillips (?- ) and UK-based Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov (?1929-1978), whose assassination in London at the hands of Bulgarian agents was admitted only in 1990 after the old government fell. In The Right Honourable Chimpanzee (1978) a crisis-ridden UK elects an ape as prime minister ( APES AND CAVEMEN). [JC] St JAMES, BLAKELY Charles PLATT. St JOHN, J(AMES) ALLEN (1872-1957) US illustrator, the principal illustrator from 1916 for the original editions of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's many books; his Tarzan and Barsoom series illustrations became so well known that they have since overshadowed all his other work. He did 9 covers for Weird Tales, over 50 for AMZ and Fantastic Adventures and several for Other Worlds. JASJ's illustrations were as Victorian as Burroughs's stories, with noble heroes and pure, virginal heroines. His black-and-white illustrations are unsophisticated sketches, and the colours in his paintings are muted, but the overall effect of violent yet graceful movement added a perfect romantic complement to Burroughs's writing. His visualizations have had a profound influence on many illustrators, particularly those specializing in HEROIC FANTASY, such as Roy G. KRENKEL and Frank FRAZETTA. [JG]Further reading: J. Allen St John: An Illustrated Bibliography (1991) by Darrell C. Richardson.See also: FANTASY; ZIFF-DAVIS. St JOHN, PHILIP Lester DEL REY. St MARS, FRANK [r] Frank AUBREY. St. NICHOLAS MAGAZINE US magazine for boys and girls, published by Scribner, later by Century Co., then by American Education Press. Founded by Rosewell Smith and ed Mary Mapes Dodge 1873-1905, William Fayal Clarke 1905-27, and others. Assistant editors included Frank R. STOCKTON 1873-81 and Tudor Jenks 1887-1902. It appeared monthly Nov 1873-May 1930 as St. Nicholas, then as SNM from June 1930 until its demise in June 1943. The format was large square octavo, becoming quarto from 1926.SNM maintained a high literary standard and kept its circulation at 70,000 for many years. Numerous fantasy stories appeared within its pages, notably by Stockton, John Kendrick BANGS and Rudyard KIPLING, ranging in content from fairy-tales to sf such as Clement FEZANDIE's Through the Earth (1898; rev 1898) and Stockton's "The Tricycle of the Future" (May 1885). Aimed at a more educated and middle-class market than the dime novels ( DIME-NOVEL SF), SNM was undoubtedly enjoyed by children to whom the FRANK READE LIBRARY was out of reach (through parental veto), and thus has some bearing on the HISTORY OF SF. [JE]Further reading: Books in Black or Red (1924) by Edmund Lester Pearson. SAKERS, DON (1958- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "Gamester" for Questar in 1981; his short work appeared in various magazines through the 1980s. His first sf novel, The Leaves of October (fixup 1988), competently presents a vision of ALIENS in the shape of sentient trees, who help humanity through the evolutionary crisis of the current era. Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three * (anth 1990), which DS ed and to which he contributed 2 stories, is a SHARED-WORLD anthology based on a filksong by Leslie Fish. (Filksongs are songs composed by members of the sf community, usually for performance at CONVENTIONS.) [JC] SAKI Pseudonym of Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), UK author and journalist noted for his acerbic writings. He began writing for The Westminster Gazette in the late 1890s as Saki, the name of the cup-bearer in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. As H.H. Munro he wrote When William Came (1914), a trenchant future- WAR novel about a German INVASION and the occupation of London, regarded by I.F. CLARKE as the best of all such works. Many tales of the weird and fantastic - ironic, witty and sometimes cruel - are included in the following collections, all as by Saki: Reginald (coll 1904), Reginald in Russia (coll 1910), The Chronicles of Clovis (coll 1911) - an assemblage of CLUB STORIES - Beasts and Super-Beasts (coll 1914), The Toys of Peace (coll 1919), The Square Egg (coll 1924) and The Complete Short Stories of Saki (coll 1930). [JE]Other works: The Westminster Alice (1902); The Unbearable Bassington (1912). SALAMA, HANNU [r] FINLAND. SALGARI, EMILIO [r] ITALY. SALlM, ALl [r] ARABIC SF. SALLIS, JAMES (1944- ) US writer, briefly active in NW during its Michael MOORCOCK-directed NEW-WAVE phase; he published his first sf story, "Kazoo", there in 1967. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work limited his appeal in the sf world, though he received some critical acclaim for A Few Last Words (coll 1970). Later work (uncollected) appeared in the USA through the 1970s and 1980s. He ed 2 sf anthologies: The War Book (anth 1969 UK) and The Shores Beneath (anth 1971). [JC] SALOON STORY CLUB STORY. SALVADOR, TOMAS [r] SPAIN. SAMACHSON, JOSEPH (1906-1980) US writer and chemist, professor of biochemistry at Loyola University before his retirement in 1973. His first story, "The Medicine" for TWS in 1941, was published as by William Morrison, under which name he wrote almost all his fiction of interest; he also wrote some stories with Frederik POHL. Under the house name Brett STERLING he wrote 2 CAPTAIN FUTURE tales, "Worlds to Come" (1943) and The Tenth Planet (1944 Captain Future as "Days of Creation"; 1969), and a juvenile sf novel, Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars (1954) as Morrison. [JC] SAMALMAN, ALEXANDER (1904-1956) US writer and editor who, after many years with Standard Magazines, became in 1954 editor of their sf journals, THRILLING WONDER STORIES, Fantastic Story Magazine ( FANTASTIC STORY QUARTERLY) and STARTLING STORIES, the first two of which were soon amalgamated with the latter, though to little avail, for it folded before the end of 1955. Relatively little of AS's writing was sf, but it has been firmly speculated - though there can be no certainty - that under the house name Will GARTH he wrote Dr Cyclops * (1940), a rather effective novelization of the film DR CYCLOPS (1940). [JC] SAMBROT, WILLIAM (ANTHONY) (1920- ) US author of more than 50 sf short stories, beginning with "Report to the People" for The BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE in 1953. Most of his work appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and other "slicks" and consequently received less attention from within the sf world than it might have done, considering its vigour and polish. WS released Island of Fear and Other SF Stories (coll 1963), and under the pseudonym William Ayes (he wrote also as Anthony Ayes) published a series of stories about Crazy Murtag in various men's magazines; in these Melvin Murtag attempts such impossible feats as repealing the First Law of Thermodynamics. [JC] SAMUELSON, DAVID N(ORMAN) (1939- ) US sf critic and professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. His PhD dissertation (University of Southern California) was later published by ARNO PRESS as a book, Visions of Tomorrow: Six Journeys from Outer to Inner Space (1975): it contains analyses of novels by Isaac ASIMOV, J.G. BALLARD, Algis BUDRYS, Arthur C. CLARKE, Walter M. MILLER Jr and Theodore STURGEON. His next book was Arthur C. Clarke: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1984). Many shorter critical pieces have appeared in EXTRAPOLATION, SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES and various critical anthologies. DS is among the more intelligent and better informed academic critics of sf. [PN]See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF. SANBORN, B.X. William S. BALLINGER. SANBORN, ROBIN (? - ) US writer in whose sf novel, The Book of Stier (1971), a youth movement inspired by the MUSIC of the mysterious Richard Stier overtopples all US institutions. As a sign of the devastation wreaked by this countercultural putsch, Canada eventually takes over the USA. [JC]See also: MESSIAHS. SANDERS, GEORGE [r] Leigh BRACKETT. SANDERS, LAWRENCE (1920- ) US writer best known for the Deadly Sin novels (The First Deadly Sin was filmed in 1980) and for the thriller The Anderson Tapes (1970), filmed in 1971. The Tomorrow File (1975) depicts a NEAR-FUTURE USA on a large canvas. At the DYSTOPIAN heart of the book can be found the Department of Bliss, whose functions in a jaded country are pejoratively analysed. Of his many remaining books, some - like The Sixth Commandment (1978) - are borderline sf. The Passion of Molly T (1984) depicts a near future in FEMINIST terms. As Mark Upton, he wrote a fantasy, Dark Summer (1979). [JC]See also: PULP MAGAZINES. SANDERS, SCOTT RUSSELL (1945- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "Touch the Earth" for Edges (anth 1980) ed Ursula K. LE GUIN. His first novel, Terrarium (1985), is set in a future USA whose human population has retreated from the polluted world into domed CITIES; the tale neatly expresses some late-20th-century guilts and their redemption, for the few humans who leave the domes find a rejuvenated Nature outdoors ( ECOLOGY). The Engineer of Beasts (1988), a juvenile, is concerned with GENETIC ENGINEERING. The Invisible Company (1989) examines the cost of maintaining a colony of immortals in a place called Paradise Island, to which the protagonist is ominously called. [JC] SANDERS, WINSTON P. [s] Poul ANDERSON. SANDERSON, IVAN T. [r] Terence ROBERTS. SANTESSON, HANS STEFAN (1914-1975) US editor and author. He ed FANTASTIC UNIVERSE from Sep 1956 until its demise in Mar 1960, and also a collection of stories from it: The Fantastic Universe Omnibus (anth 1960). HSS was credited with the editorship of the US edition of NEW WORLDS (5 issues 1960). Other HSS anthologies are Rulers of Men (anth 1965), Gods for Tomorrow (anth 1967), Crime Prevention in the 30th Century (anth 1969), Gentle Invaders (anth 1969), The Mighty Barbarians: Great Sword and Sorcery Heroes (anth 1969), The Mighty Swordsmen (anth 1970), The Days After Tomorrow (anth 1971) and Flying Saucers in Fact and Fiction (anth 1968), this last containing some nonfiction items. [PN] SANTO DOMINGO LATIN AMERICA. SANTOS, DOMINGO [r] SPAIN. SANTOS, JOAQUIM FELICIO DOS [r] LATIN AMERICA. SAPIR, RICHARD BEN (1936-1987) US writer who published some borderline fantasy as by Richard Ben and, as Richard Sapir and in collaboration with Warren B. MURPHY (whom see for titles), parts of the Destroyer series of spoof thrillers featuring the Doc Savage-like adventures of Remo Williams, a White man (and avatar of Shiva the Destroyer) trained in the paranormal combat arts of Sinanju. The Assassin's Handbook (coll 1982; rev vt Inside Sinanju 1985) as by RBS and Murphy (in fact by Will MURRAY) is an amused (and amusing) companion to the sequence. RBS is of sf interest mainly for The Far Arena (1978), a SLEEPER-AWAKES tale in which a Roman gladiator, having offended the Emperor Domitian, is cast upon an ice floe where he freezes until resuscitated in the 20th century; his responses to the contemporary world are illuminatingly critical. In Quest (1987) the Holy Grail is discovered and becomes the object of a violent modern-day quest; in The Body (1983) the remains of Christ are apparently discovered. [JC]See also: CRYONICS; SUSPENDED ANIMATION. SAPPER Pseudonym of UK writer Herman Cyril McNeile (1888-1937), who became famous for the creation in Bulldog Drummond (1920) of a thuggish antisemitic crime-fighting gentleman vigilante, some of whose adventures - like The Final Count (1926), a tale set in 1927 and involving the use of a secret weapon - come close to sf. The Island of Terror (1931 Canada) features a race of ape-men ( APES AND CAVEMEN). Guardians of the Treasure (1931 US), written under his own name, is a borderline-sf yarn. [JC] SAPPHIRE AND STEEL UK tv series (1979-82). An ATV Network Production. Written/created by P.J. Hammond (except "Adventure Five" by Ben Houghton and Anthony Reed); executive prod David Reid; prod Shaun O'Riordan. Dir O'Riordan, David Foster. 4 seasons, 34 25min episodes in all; broken into "Adventure One" (6 episodes 1979), "Adventure Two" (8 episodes 1979), "Adventure Three" (6 episodes 1981), "Adventure Four" (4 episodes 1981), "Adventure Five" (6 episodes 1981), "Adventure Six" (4 episodes 1982). Main players Joanna Lumley (Sapphire), David McCallum (Steel) and David Collings (Silver).Possibly the most mystifying and least coherent sf series ever to appear on tv, SAS made a virtue of enigma. Sapphire and Steel are elemental forces in human form, policing the integrity of the corridor of time, which suffers incursions (often appearing as ghosts) from the past or future. Sapphire has paranormal powers, but is not as time-resistant as Steel. Time shifts and stops; people appear and disappear; memories dissolve; the atmosphere is theatrical, ardent, brooding; Doppelgangers proliferate; characters become absorbed into pictures and photographs. The audience was deeply divided: many saw it as drivel, some as a triumph of popular Surrealism-Magritte meets The AVENGERS - challenging our PERCEPTIONS of what is real. [PN] SARABANDE, WILLIAM (? - ) US author of the prehistoric-sf First Americans series: The First Americans: Beyond the Sea of Ice (1987), #2: Corridor of Storms (1988), #3: Forbidden Land (1989), #4: Walkers of the Wind (1990),#5: The Sacred Stones (1991), Thunder in the Sky (1992) and The Edge of the World (1993). The books were SHARECROPPED. Wolves of the Dawn (1987) is a singleton. [JC] SARAC, ROGER Pseudonym of US writer and motion-picture executive Roger Andrew Caras (1928- ), author of nonfiction under his own name and, as RS, of an sf novel, The Throwbacks (1965), about genetic monsters threatening mankind. [JC] SARBAN Pseudonym of UK writer John W. Wall (1910-1989), a career diplomat for the UK from 1933 until his retirement in 1966. Most of the short stories assembled in Ringstones, and Other Curious Tales (coll 1951) and The Doll Maker, and Other Tales of the Uncanny (coll 1953) are pure fantasy, but the haunting and nightmarish THE SOUND OF HIS HORN (1952) has often been conscripted to the sf ranks by sf critics, for it is partially set in an ALTERNATE WORLD, a Germany 100 years after the Nazis have triumphed in WWII ( HITLER WINS); the evocation of this timeless RURITANIAN enclave, however, is as a pure fantasy land, ruled over by a charismatic Master Forester (an avatar of Herne the Hunter), where untermensch dissidents are hunted down for sport; the dark, flamboyant imagery of erotic chastisement is startlingly fetishistic. [PN/JC]See also: GAMES AND SPORTS. SARGENT, CRAIG Jan STACY. SARGENT, LYMAN TOWER (1940- ) US academic and bibliographer, in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St Louis. From his first piece of interest, "Utopia and Dystopia in Contemporary Science Fiction" for The Futurist in 1972, his sf work has been exclusively focused on the study of UTOPIAS and DYSTOPIAS, the most important result of which has been British and American Utopian Literature 1516-1975: An Annotated Bibliography (1979; much exp, vt British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985: An Annotated, Chronological Bibliography 1988). The revised edn, which lists several thousand titles in a format which allows for (sometimes excessively) brief comment, is an essential tool for the study of this field. LTS's extremely broad-church definition of a utopian work allows him to bring very disparate writings - ranging from GENRE SF to primarily nonfiction works - into thought-provoking juxtaposition. [JC]See also: BIBLIOGRAPHIES; HISTORY OF SF. SARGENT, PAMELA (1948- ) US writer and editor with an MA in classical philosophy from the State University of New York at Binghamton, where she taught for some time; she has lived with George ZEBROWSKI for many years. Although she published her first sf story, "Landed Minority", in FSF as early as 1970 - with much of her early work being assembled as Starshadows (coll 1977) - she first came to wide notice as the editor of an excellent ANTHOLOGY series comprising stories written by women about female protagonists. Though the tales assembled in Women of Wonder (anth 1975), More Women of Wonder (anth 1976) and The New Women of Wonder (anth 1978) are not all FEMINIST, the long and argued introduction to the first volume necessarily presents in feminist terms the case for a theme anthology of this sort. A further theme anthology, Bio-Futures (anth 1976), is also notable for the strength of the organizing mind behind it.At the same time PS began to publish the novels which confirmed a sense that she was one of those writers of the late 1970s and 1980s capable of making significant use of the thematic potentials of the genre; the range of themes so examined was very wide. Cloned Lives (fixup 1976) traces the lives of a number of genetically identical children brought up together, grippingly differentiating among them ( CLONES). The Sudden Star (1972 NW as "Julio 204"; much exp 1979; vt The White Death 1980 UK), set mostly in a post-nuclear- HOLOCAUST Miami, examines through multiple viewpoints a world whose disintegration reflects a cogent ecological passion ( ECOLOGY). In the Earthminds sequence of FAR-FUTURE sf tales for older children - Watchstar (1980), Eye of the Comet (1984) and Homesmind (1985) - comet-dwelling nontelepathic descendants of humanity confront Earth's own telepaths, whose culture is otherwise primitive; their eventual reconciliation comes after many trials. A kind of thematic pendant to this series, Earthseed (1983), carries its juvenile protagonists through a traditional rite of passage in which they escape a benevolent AI-monitored GENERATION STARSHIP (see also POCKET UNIVERSE) and earn the chance to land upon a new planet.The Golden Space (fixup 1982) examines questions of IMMORTALITY, The Alien Upstairs (1983) exposes a disheartened NEAR-FUTURE family to the transcendental influence of the eponymous visitor, and The Shore of Women (1986) complexly subjects a traditional post-holocaust venue to an analysis ambiguously feminist: women's dominance of science and technology has a punitive ring, and the world depicted seems less than stable. VENUS OF DREAMS (1986) and its sequel, Venus of Shadows (1988), depict the TERRAFORMING of VENUS in long-breathed epic vein; a final volume, Child of Venus, is projected. A late juvenile, Alien Child (1988), somewhat awkwardly presents the last human children with ethical questions about the future of their race as they approach adulthood in an ALIEN breeding complex which is both hospice and research institute. The Best of Pamela Sargent (coll 1987) ed Martin H. GREENBERG provides a conspectus of her career from 1972; and "Danny Goes to Mars" (1992) won a NEBULA award for Best Novelette. Not all of PS's varied explorations can be described as fully successful, for a slight sense of cogitation sometimes causes her narrative sense to falter, and her continued interest in the permutations of human nature can seem abstract; but always a strong, serious, attentive mind can be reassuringly felt at work. [JC]Other works: Elvira's Zoo (1979 chap), juvenile; The Mountain Cage (1983 chap); Afterlives: Stories about Life after Death (anth 1986) ed with Ian WATSON; Ruler of the Sky (1993), associational.About the author: The Work of Pamela Sargent: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide (1990 chap) by Jeffrey M. ELLIOT.See also: COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; ESCHATOLOGY; WOMEN SF WRITERS. SATELLITE The FUTURIAN . SATELLITE OF BLOOD FIRST MAN INTO SPACE. SATELLITE SCIENCE FICTION US magazine, DIGEST-size Oct 1956-Dec 1958, BEDSHEET-size Feb-May 1959, 18 issues Oct 1956-May 1959. Bimonthly; monthly for last 4 issues (Feb-May 1959). Published by Renown Publications. Cylvia Kleinman (Mrs Leo MARGULIES) was managing ed on all issues, which were ed Sam MERWIN Jr Oct-Dec 1956, Leo Margulies Feb 1957-Dec 1958 and Frank Belknap LONG Feb-May 1959.SSF was to some degree a re-creation in digest format of STARTLING STORIES, with a similar editorial policy ("a complete science fiction novel in every issue") and an editor and publisher (Leo Margulies was both) who had worked on that magazine in the 1940s. It began promisingly, its first 2 issues featuring "The Man from Earth" (Oct 1956; rev vt Man of Earth 1958) by Algis BUDRYS and "A Glass of Darkness" (Dec 1956; vt The Cosmic Puppets 1957) by Philip K. DICK, as well as stories by Isaac ASIMOV, Arthur C. CLARKE (in each of the first 5 issues), L. Sprague DE CAMP and others. Merwin left after #2, however, and the magazine gradually declined into mediocrity, though it did run an interesting series of articles by Sam MOSKOWITZ on the HISTORY OF SF - a partial basis for his Explorers of the Infinite (coll 1963) - and The Languages of Pao (Dec 1957; cut 1958) by Jack VANCE. The June 1959 issue was printed but never distributed. [MJE] SATIRE From the earliest days of PROTO SCIENCE FICTION, satire was its prevailing mode, and this inheritance was evident even after sf proper began in the 19th century. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as literary work "in which prevailing vices or follies are held up to ridicule". Proto sf is seldom interested in imagining the societies of other worlds or future times for their own sake; most proto sf of the 17th and 18th centuries (by, for example, CYRANO DE BERGERAC, Daniel DEFOE, Francis GODWIN, Eliza HAYWOOD, Robert PALTOCK, RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE and Jonathan SWIFT) created imaginary settings, commonly on ISLANDS or on the MOON, as a kind of convenient blank slate upon which various societies satirizing the writer's own could be inscribed - commonly a travesty of some particular aspect of it (still a common strategy in sf by MAINSTREAM WRITERS and in GENRE SF as well). Therefore, by extension, satire is ancestral to the DYSTOPIA, and even the UTOPIA often contains satirical elements. Many critics believe that Sir Thomas MORE intended the reader to take some aspects of Utopia (1516 in Latin; trans 1551) with a grain of salt. The satire may also take the form of debunking other kinds of literature, as in The True History (2nd century AD) by LUCIAN. The wonderful exaggerations of this story poke fun at travellers' tales generally, though its zestful telling suggests a certain sympathy with the inquisitive mind which dotes on such imaginings.It is almost impossible to write a work of fiction set in another world - be it some alien place or our own world in another time - which does not make some sort of statement about the writer's own real world. Thus most sf bears at least a family resemblance to satire. In his critical study New Maps of Hell (1960 US), Kingsley AMIS argued that dystopian satire rather than technological extrapolation is central to sf (perhaps because his own fiction is largely satirical). It is an easy argument to support, at least in terms of the number of texts that can be cited as evidence.Samuel BUTLER and Mark TWAIN were supreme among the prominent satirists of the 19th century who used sf imagery to make their points; even when we turn to the work of writers considered more central to the development of modern sf, such as Jules VERNE and H.G. WELLS, we find the satirical element prominent. Wells's THE TIME MACHINE (1895), for example, focuses in large part on the relationship of the working classes and the leisured classes, and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1898) can be read as an ironic tale in which the UK, the great, technologically advanced colonizing power of the day, is herself subjected to colonization by a technological superior. Satire need not be good-humoured (indeed, that brand of satire said to be descended from Juvenal [AD 60-c130] is commonly biting), and both these works by Wells are notably savage, especially THE WAR OF THE WORLDS in its portrait of a demoralized and cowardly population.Among the mainstream writers of this century who have written important sf satires are Anthony BURGESS, Karel CAPEK, Anatole FRANCE, Aldous HUXLEY, Andre MAUROIS, George ORWELL, Gore VIDAL and Evelyn WAUGH. It would be impossible to list the innumerable sf satires by less-known writers, but we can pick out Archibald MARSHALL's Upsidonia (1915), Owen M. JOHNSON's The Coming of the Amazons (1931), Frederick Philip GROVE's Consider her Ways (1947) and Stefan THEMERSON's Professor Minaa's Lecture (1953). The latter two contain many pungent comments on human society by insect intelligences, both being examples of one of the most popular satiric strategies in sf: the use of an alien perspective to allow us to see our own institutions in a fresh light. Indeed, there is a sense in which all satire depends upon just such reversals of perspective, which sf is peculiarly well fitted to supply; satire forces us to look at familiar aspects of our lives with a fresh vision, so that all their absurdity or horror is, so to speak, framed, as in a picture. Jonathan SWIFT used intelligent horses in Gulliver's Travels (1726; rev 1735), VOLTAIRE a visiting giant alien from Sirius in Micromegas (1750 Berlin; 1752 France), Grant ALLEN a man from the future in The British Barbarians (1895), Lester LURGAN a visiting Martian in A Message From Mars (1912) and Eden PHILLPOTTS a visiting alien lizard in Saurus (1938). (The same strategy is now common in sf tv comedy; e.g., MY FAVORITE MARTIAN [1963-6], MORK AND MINDY [1978-82] and ALF [1986-90].) Aside from visiting aliens and future dystopias there are many other strategies for producing such shifts of perspective. One such is evident in The Stepford Wives (1972) by Ira LEVIN, filmed as The STEPFORD WIVES (1975): sexist masculine attitudes are satirized in a thriller centring on the attractions of passive, substitute robot wives. Indeed, the satirical creation of imaginary societies in which the horrors of our own are writ large is especially common in feminist sf ( FEMINISM), as in Margaret ATWOOD's THE HANDMAID'S TALE (1985). ROBOTS are often used in sf satire for a different reason: for their innocence. Because robots are, in theory, not programmed with prejudices, and are given simple ethical systems, they may have a childlike purity that cuts through rationalizations and sophistications. In Philip K. DICK's Now Wait for Last Year (1966), for example, the hero's moral quandary is amusingly but touchingly resolved by advice from a robot taxi-cab. CHILDREN IN SF are occasionally used in a similar manner. Both these are simply special cases of the "innocent-observer" strategy first popularized by Voltaire in Candide (1759), in which a naive man, with few expectations of life and a likable character, is consistently abused and exploited in his travels. Modern sf examples include THE SIRENS OF TITAN (1959) by Kurt VONNEGUT Jr, in which the hero is a millionaire brainwashed into innocence on Mars, and Robert SHECKLEY's Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962; vt The Journey of Joenes 1978 UK), where the traveller is a naive islander who has a terrible time in a future USA. Sheckley was for a time among the finest genre-sf satirists, and a great deal of his work depends on the introduction of a similar innocent viewpoint.Satire is not only a matter of imaginary societies and shifts in perspective; it has a great deal to do with narrative tone, which cannot generally afford to be too hectoring or sarcastic, or the reader simply feels bludgeoned. An air of mild surprise is often considered appropriate, though commonly the narrator's voice is ironic or sardonic, a good example of the latter being found in a collection which contains several satirical sf fables, Sardonic Tales (coll trans 1927), assembled from Contes Cruels (coll 1883) by VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM, after whose collection this whole mode of writing is often known as "contes cruels" or "cruel tales". Further examples of this chilling subgenre can be found in the work of John COLLIER, Roald DAHL and sometimes Howard FAST. In genre sf it characterizes the excellent work of John T. SLADEK, who shifts skilfully between the mock-innocent and the ironic in his stories, nearly all of which are satire.The standard of satire within genre sf was not very high before the 1950s, though numerous pulp writers from Stanton A. COBLENTZ to L. Sprague DE CAMP wrote occasionally in this vein. One of the earliest sf writers to excel here was, especially in his short stories, Henry KUTTNER (whose work, even when signed Kuttner, was often written collaboratively with C.L. MOORE). Short, satirical sf stories found a natural home in the early 1950s when the magazine GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION opened up a new market. The best of the Gal satirists were probably Damon KNIGHT, C.M. KORNBLUTH, Frederik POHL, Sheckley and William TENN. As satirical collaborators, Pohl and Kornbluth specialized in dystopian stories which extrapolated displeasing aspects of present-day life into the future: the world of advertising was pilloried in both THE SPACE MERCHANTS (1953) and Pohl's much later solo effort, The Merchants War (1984), and of organized sport in Gladiator-at-Law (1955). It was the turn of insurance companies in Preferred Risk (1955) by Pohl and Lester DEL REY writing together as Edson MCCANN. Another sharp anti-advertising book is The Big Ball of Wax (1954) by Shepherd MEAD; and much of the amusing but occasionally heavy-handed satire of Ron GOULART is directed against the ad-man's mentality, and the MEDIA LANDSCAPE generally.In the 1960s and 1970s the magazine NEW WORLDS published many writers whose satirical skills tended more towards a rather dry irony than to overt anger or even jovial sarcasm. Notable among these were Brian W. ALDISS, Thomas M. DISCH and the editor himself, Michael MOORCOCK, whose most directly satirical sequence is Dancers at the End of Time, beginning with An Alien Heat (1972). US satire, too, became less broad than before. The amusing but obvious satire of Fritz LEIBER's The Silver Eggheads (1961) and A Specter is Haunting Texas (1969) gave ground to the work of writers like Barry N. MALZBERG and James TIPTREE Jr, who (in completely different ways) also preferred a lower-key irony (through which in both cases a ferocious bitterness is visible) and in whose works the satirical was only one of several elements. Pure satires were becoming comparatively rare in sf by the 1970s, although Peter DICKINSON's The Green Gene (1973) and Richard COWPER's Clone (1972) are examples; the latter is another story in the Candide pattern. Some important satirical work issued from the Communist bloc, notably that of Stanislaw LEM in, especially, Cyberiada (coll 1965; trans as The Cyberiad 1974 US) and "Kongres Futurologiczny" (1971; trans as The Futurological Congress 1974 US), where the savagery of the wit is Swift-like.The sf CINEMA has flirted with satire quite often. The best-known examples are probably PLANET OF THE APES (1968), SLEEPER (1973) and DR STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I STOPPED WORRYING AND LEARNED TO LOVE THE BOMB (1963); others are The PRESIDENT'S ANALYST (1967), WESTWORLD (1973), The STUFF (1985), TERRORVISION (1986), EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY (1988) and MEET THE APPLEGATES (1990). DAWN OF THE DEAD (1977; vt Zombie) is unusual in marrying satire to HORROR, especially in its central image of zombies shambling around a shopping mall. STRANGE INVADERS (1983) manages to combine an exciting alien-invasion story with considerable satire on the USA of the 1950s (a cultural era into whose behaviour patterns the aliens have been frozen) and of the 1980s (when they attempt to act).Parody is a form of satire, and there has not been a great deal in sf. The best parodies of sf writers and their CLICHES are probably those by John Sladek in The Steam-Driven Boy (coll 1973); also fairly successful are those in David LANGFORD's The Dragonhiker's Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune's Edge: Odyssey Two (coll 1988). Langford's cowritten Earthdoom! (1987) parodies bestselling DISASTER novels. A parody with a more serious point is Norman SPINRAD's The Iron Dream (1972), which masquerades as a SWORD-AND-SORCERY novel written by Adolf Hitler. Harry HARRISON's Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965) and Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers (1973) parody Robert A. HEINLEIN and E.E. "Doc" SMITH respectively. H.G. WELLS was a favourite subject for parodists from early on, as in The War of the Wenuses (1898) by E.V. LUCAS and C.L. Graves (1856-1944) and Max Beerbohm's "Perkins and Mankind" (1912). Mention my Name in Atlantis (1972) by John JAKES is a parody of Robert E. HOWARD, not as sharp as Spinrad's, and its hero not as funny as Terry PRATCHETT's "Cohen the Barbarian", who pops up occasionally in the Discworld series. Bob SHAW's Who Goes There? (1977) parodies many themes of SPACE OPERA in general with considerable inventiveness, as does the most successful sf-parody film, DARK STAR (1974). Sf writers have produced a number of parodies of PSEUDO-SCIENCE (which see for listing). The best known sf parodist of the 1980s was Douglas ADAMS, with his Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. There is also, of course, much pastiche - Philip Jose FARMER has written a good deal - but pastiche and parody are not the same thing, for the pastiche may be homage whereas parody normally implies deflation (although the two can co-exist, as in Dark Star).In general satire during the 1970s-80s was perhaps less visible in genre sf than in borderline-sf FABULATIONS (including some by John Calvin BATCHELOR, William BURROUGHS, Angela CARTER, Robert COOVER, Carol EMSHWILLER, Alasdair GRAY, Jerzy KOSINSKI, Thomas PYNCHON and Josephine SAXTON - the list could be considerably extended). While genre sf continues to take the form of pure satire comparatively rarely, satirical elements are common in seemingly nonsatirical genre novels, especially perhaps in the work of writers for whom irony is an important part of their vision, such as Iain BANKS, Terry BISSON, George Alec EFFINGER, M. John HARRISON, John KESSEL, James MORROW, Rudy RUCKER and Howard WALDROP. Not that irony and satire can be read as isomorphic: Gene WOLFE and John CROWLEY, for example, are ironists almost always, satirists almost never. [PN]See also: HUMOUR; SOCIOLOGY; TABOOS. SATTERFIELD, CHARLES Pseudonym used on 4 magazine stories by Frederik POHL, 1954-9, the first being a collaboration with Lester DEL REY. [JC] SATURN OUTER PLANETS. SATURN US DIGEST-size magazine. 5 issues Mar 1957-Mar 1958, published by Robert C. Sproul as Candar Publishing Company; ed Sproul with editorial consultant Donald A. WOLLHEIM. A Jules VERNE story appeared in #1, but nothing else of note. #1 was subtitled "The Magazine of Science Fiction", #2 "Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" and the remainder "Science Fiction and Fantasy". Despite his mere "consultant" title, Wollheim chose the contents. [FHP/PN] SATURN AWARD AWARDS. SATURN 3 Film (1980). Transcontinental. Prod and dir Stanley Donen, starring Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel. Screenplay Martin AMIS, from a story by John Barry. 87 mins. Colour.With a good director like Donen and a screenplay by Martin AMIS, it is difficult to see how so obscene and silly an exploitation movie could come to be. Douglas and Fawcett play the couple alternating romping in bed with working on a hydroponics project, designed to feed millions, situated for no logical reason on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Unbalanced Benson (Keitel) arrives disguised as a legitimate researcher and builds an equally unstable ROBOT which spends most of the rest of the film tearing apart living creatures (including people) and groping lasciviously at Fawcett. This is the second film after DEMON SEED (1977) to feature an amorous, unbalanced AI, a notion more GOTHIC than scientific. The novelization was Saturn 3 * (1980) by Steve GALLAGHER. [PN] SAUNDERS, CALEB [s] Robert A. HEINLEIN. SAUNDERS, JAKE (1947- ) US writer, one of the less active members of a Texas grouping which includes Howard WALDROP, his collaborator on The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 (1974). [JC] SAVA, GEORGE George BORODIN. SAVAGE, BLAKE John BLAINE. SAVAGE, RICHARD Pseudonym of UK writer Ivan Roe (1917- ) for his thrillers - including The Horrible Hat (1949), in which a psychoanalyst/detective explains strange manifestations - and his sf novel, When the Moon Died (1955), whose telling involves an exceedingly complicated frame: far-future aliens visit a dead Earth to listen to a tape whose long-dead narrator has discovered how, long before, a nuclear HOLOCAUST was prevented by scientists who destroyed the Moon but subsequently established a totalitarian DYSTOPIA. The aliens never do work out why Earth is now bereft of life. Under his own name Roe wrote some non-genre novels, like The Salamander Touch (1952), in which an atomic scientist disappears with difficult consequences. [JC/PN] SAVARIN, JULIAN JAY (? - ) Dominican-born West Indian writer and musician, in the UK since his teens. His Lemmus trilogy - Lemmus One: Waiters on the Dance (1972), Lemmus Two: Beyond the Outer Mirr (1976) and Lemmus Three: Archives of Haven (coll of linked stories 1977) - is an expansive SPACE OPERA in which GOD (the Galactic Organization and Dominions) experimentally settles Terra with people who will evolve in isolation ( ADAM AND EVE). Explanations are offered for the Judeo-Christian tradition, the fall of ATLANTIS, etc. Arena (1979) involves folk from various times in a mighty struggle. JJS afterwards turned to thrillers. [JC] SAVCHENKO, VLADIMIR (IVANOVICH) (1933- ) Russian writer who began as an author of short stories, publishing Tchironyie Zviozdy ["Dark Stars"] (coll 1960) and contributing to anthologies. His most famous novel, Otkrytiie Sebia (1967; trans Antonina W. Bouis as Self-Discovery 1979 US), depicts in uncliched terms the scientific development of a SUPERMAN. Later stories, comparable with the metaphysical parables of Stanislaw LEM and Philip K. DICK, are to be found in Ispytaniie Istinoi ["Truth Test"] (coll [date unconfirmed]) and Algoritm Uspekha ["Success Algorithm"] (coll 1983). A play, Novoiie Oruzhiie ["New Weapons"] (1983), portrays modern physicists obsessed by moral problems after discovering a process which neutralizes all nuclear weapons on Earth. A rare attempt, in the Soviet sf of the 1980s, to create a future communist UTOPIA is the less successful Za Perevalom ["After the Pass"] (1984). [VG] SAVILE, FRANK (MACKENZIE) (? -? ) UK writer who wrote also as Knarf Elivas (his own names reversed). Beyond the Great South Wall (1899) combines the search for a Mayan LOST WORLD in the Antarctic with the actual discovery of the extinct Native Americans' polar deity, a brontosaurus with hypnotic eyes. All ends well with the death of the creature and some human marriages. [JC] SAVOY BOOKS David BRITTON; Michael BUTTERWORTH. SAWTELLE, WILLIAM CARTER [s] Rog PHILLIPS. SAWYER, ROBERT J(AMES) (1960- ) Canadian writer who began publishing sf with "If I'm Here, Imagine Where They Sent my Luggage" for The Village Voice in 1981, and was moderately active as a short-story writer in the 1980s. His first novel, Golden Fleece (1988 AMZ; exp 1990 US), set on a colony ship named Argo, run by an AI named JASON, perhaps slightly overcopiously engages to meld Greek myth and HARD SF in the story of a murder and its solution by a human protagonist so psychologically recessed that the AI cannot read his intentions. The Quintaglio Ascension sequence - comprising Far-seer (1992 US), Fossil Hunter (1993 US) and Foreigner (1994 US) - is set on an unstable Moon orbiting a distant planet, and inhabited by intelligent dinosaurs who were transported there from Earth by a quasi-omniscient Watcher aeons past. True to the conventions of HARD SF, the young dinosaur protagonist of the sequence both revolutionizes the sciences of his world, and has copious adventures while doing so. Some of the detail work is luminously enjoyable; some of the premises are facile. It is, all in all, a thoroughly readable presentation. End of an Era (1994 US) is also about dinosaurs, but different ones: 2 contemporary Earth paleontologists vie over explanations for the death of dinosaurs on this planet, and use TIME TRAVEL to test their theses. In the end, an overly intricate explanation is offered; but again the journey through the text is swift. The Terminal Experiment (1995 UK), first published 1994-95 in ASF as "Hobson's Choice", is an sf mystery centring on the discovery that, at the instant of death, a form of energy escapes the human brain. [JC]See also: CANADA. SAXON, PETER Initially the personal pseudonym of UK writer W. Howard BAKER, under which he wrote many titles for Amalgamated Press, mainly stories in the Sexton Blake series before its cancellation in 1963. He then took the name to Mayflower Books, where the series continued, written by him and others under what was now a house name. The claims of Scottish writer Wilfred MCNEILLY to have written most of the PS titles are unjustified (see entries on BAKER and MCNEILLY for their PS work). Other writers who used the name included Rex Dolpin, Stephen FRANCES, Ross Richards and Martin THOMAS. Titles of sf interest not by Baker or McNeilly include Slave Brain (1967), Black Honey (1968) and Corruption (1968), whose authors have not been identified, and some titles in the Guardians psychic-investigators sequence: Through the Dark Curtain (1968 US) by Richards, The Curse of Rathlaw (1968) by Martin and The Vampires of Finistere (1970) by Dolpin. The most memorable PS title (written by Baker with Frances) may be The Disoriented Man (1966; vt Scream and Scream Again 1967 US), filmed as SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (1969), the latter being something of a cult classic. [JC] SAXON, RICHARD J.L. MORRISSEY. SAXTON, JOSEPHINE (MARY HOWARD) (1935- ) UK writer who began publishing sf with "The Wall" for Science Fantasy in 1965, and whose first 3 novels - The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969 US), Vector for Seven: The Weltanschaung [sic] of Mrs Amelia Mortimer and Friends (1970 US) and Group Feast (1971 US) - established her very rapidly as an inventive creator of sf FABULATIONS. Each of these books presents narratives whose outcomes are more readable as allegories of their protagonists' moral fates than of any physical journey, though the image of what might be called the bollixed quest is central to her work. These journeys are described - often in some detail, as in Vector for Seven - in a register of perilous ambivalence, half INNER SPACE, half mutable and frustrating external world. When JS returned to publishing novels in the 1980s, titles like The Travails of Jane Saint (1980; exp as coll vt The Travails of Jane Saint and Other Stories 1986) and The Consciousness Machine; Jane Saint and the Backlash: The Further Travails of Jane Saint (coll 1989) clearly demonstrated the fundamental continuity of her vision. Queen of the States (1986) - a clever title in which "States" can be interpreted as referring to the USA or to various sorts of mental breakdown - comes very close to a savage reductionism: the sf/fantasy escapades of the female protagonist default constantly to delusion, for she is imprisoned in a mental institution. Perhaps even more clearly than before, these later books are governed by a FEMINIST sense of the constraints binding women to mundane, male-ordained reality - a sense that goes far to explain the wildness of JS's protagonists and the lungeing movements of her prose. Her non-Jane Saint short stories, which tend to a slantwise but pointed lightness of touch, have been assembled in The Power of Time (coll 1985) and Little Tours of Hell: Tall Tales of Food and Holidays (coll 1986). [JC]See also: ALTERNATE WORLDS; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; PERCEPTION. SAXTON, MARK (1914-1988) US writer who, as an editor at Farrar & Rinehart, helped Austin Tappan WRIGHT's daughter, Sylvia Wright, edit the massive manuscript of Islandia, which his firm published in 1942. MS himself produced some detective fiction, but his sf was confined to the Islandia world, for which he wrote 3 novels in continuation of Wright's original: The Islar: A Narrative of Lang III (1969), narrated by the grandson of Wright's John Lang, The Two Kingdoms: A Novel of Islandia (1979) and Havoc in Islandia (1982). The UTOPIAN glow of the original did not survive unaltered, but MS's work was both competent and devoted. [JC] SAYLES, JOHN (1950- ) US writer and film-maker. JS made his reputation as a MAINSTREAM WRITER with the novels Pride of the Bimbos (1975) and Union Dues (1977) and his collection The Anarchist's Convention (coll 1979). He began writing scripts for exploitation movies in the late 1970s, and enjoyed a burst of creativity in association with Roger CORMAN, Joe DANTE, Lewis Teague and Steven SPIELBERG. His sf and fantasy screenplays, always lively and self-aware, are PIRANHA (1978), BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980), The Howling (1980), ALLIGATOR (1980), The Clan of the Cave Bear (1985) and Wild Thing (1989). Night Skies, a horror script about an isolated farm besieged by alien visitors, was commissioned by Spielberg but then abandoned in favour of the similar but more benevolent CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977). JS made his directorial debut with Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980), and has made a number of well received non-genre films since, including Lianna (1981) and Baby, It's You (1983). His sole sf film as director is The BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET (1984), in which the story of a Black alien who crashlands in Harlem is used to tackle JS's usual concerns. [KN]See also: CINEMA. SCANDINAVIA This entry refers primarily to Sweden and Norway; there are separate entries for DENMARK and FINLAND. Scandinavia has always been somewhat isolated from the main roads of European cultural development, and never more so than during the 18th century, when the Age of Enlightenment swept across the rest of Europe. Outside the mainly French-speaking court, Scandinavia was poor and starving, mainly agricultural, and crushed by repeated, ruinous wars. It is perhaps not surprising that excursions into fantastic literature were few: Scandinavia had nothing to compare with the French Voyages imaginaires, a 36-vol series published from 1787 and running from LUCIAN to CYRANO DE BERGERAC to Jonathan SWIFT. The first noted Scandinavian example of fantastic literature was Danish ( DENMARK): Nicolai Klimii iter subterraneum (1741 in Latin; exp 1745; trans anon as A Journey to the World Under-Ground. By Nicolas Klimius 1742 UK; vt A Journey to the World Underground 1974 US) by Ludwig HOLBERG. This witty journey into a HOLLOW EARTH, somewhat reminiscent of the work of Swift, is regarded as a classic and has never been out of print. In Sweden, Olof von Dalin (1708-1763) published in his magazine Then Swanska Argus an amusing political story about extraterrestrial visitors to Earth, "Saga om Erik hin Gotske" ["Tale of Erik of the Goths"] (1734), and in Norway there was the early TIME-TRAVEL play Anno 7603 (1781) by John Hermann Wessel (1742-1785). But these were isolated examples. Fantastic literature was popular, but most of it was what we would today call HEROIC FANTASY, with sword-toting heroes, maidens in distress, sentient dragons, etc. The first Scandinavian novel that can be considered as modern sf, with everything that description implies, appeared as late as 1878: Oxygen och Aromasia ["Oxygen and Aromasia"] (1878) by the Swedish journalist Claes Lundin (1825-1908). Unfortunately, it bore unmistakeable signs that Lundin had read the German book Bilder aus der Zukunft ["Images of the Future"] (coll 1878) by Kurd LASSWITZ, published in Breslau earlier that same year. Lundin's version is a tale set a few hundred years hence in a failed UTOPIA; it is a funny SATIRE bursting with then-new sf ideas-time travel, tv, moving sidewalks, ALIENS, airships and SPACESHIPS, and even an interesting TIME PARADOX. It is still eminently readable; a new edition was published as recently as 1974.Again, however, this was an isolated example. Lundin wrote no more sf - he is today mostly remembered as the mentor of August Strindberg (1849-1912) - and no new talents appeared to take his place. Although the first book ever written about sf, Camille FLAMMARION's Les mondes imaginaires et les mondes reels (1864; trans as Real and Imaginary Worlds 1865 US), was translated into Swedish as early as 1867 and Jules VERNE's novels were translated into the Scandinavian languages as soon as they appeared in France, few indigenous authors tried their hands. Of the 286 straightforward sf novels published 1870-1900 in Sweden, the leading literary market in Scandinavia, the overwhelming majority were translations of the popular foreign sf authors of the time: Verne, Flammarion, Lasswitz, Mor JOKAI, Andre LAURIE and H.G. WELLS. There was an early attempt at a Swedish sf magazine, Stella - 4 irregular issues Apr 1886-Aug 1888, with short stories by these foreign authors and a scattering of anonymous material that may have been by local hands - but it was much before its time and vanished without trace.Very little happened in Scandinavia until the explosive arrival on the Swedish literary scene of Otto Witt (1875-1923). Originally a mining engineer, he worked in Germany until 1912, then returned to Sweden firmly resolved to win fame and fortune. (Interestingly, he had studied at the Technicum in Bingen, Germany, at the same time as Hugo GERNSBACK, later to launch the first US SF MAGAZINE, AMAZING STORIES, and Karl Hans Strobl, later to launch the first sf/fantasy magazine in AUSTRIA, Der Orchideengarten. There is no evidence that they met.) To this end Witt wrote dozens of sf novels, all bursting with new and usually harebrained ideas which nobody else took seriously. He can be thought of as a Swedish Hugo Gernsback but with ten times the ego. His many novels were merely vehicles for his crackpot theories; Hur manen erovrades ["How the Moon was Conquered"] (1915) treated the creation of the MOON, Guldfursten ["The Prince of Gold"] (1916) proposed a sure-fire way of making gold, and so on. But his great accomplishment was the creation of Sweden's first modern sf magazine, Hugin, which ran for 85 issues 1916-20, preceded by a few irregular issues published to test the market. According to its cover, Hugin offered "scientific novels, scientific causeries, inventive sketches, adventure stories and scientific fairy-tales". Inspiration probably came from German and French sf magazines, like the German Der LUFTPIRAT UND SEIN LENKBARES LUFTSCHIFF series, but the style was entirely Witt's own. Hugin was unique among sf magazines: written, edited and published by Witt, advocating in fictionalized form every mad idea he could think of - as if John W. CAMPBELL had extended some of his more notorious editorials into short stories that filled every issue of ASF. Witt even wrote the advertisements as sf shorts, complete with kind words about the sponsor's products!In Norway Ovre Richter-Frich (1872-1945) issued more than 20 popular novels from 1911 detailing the adventures of the superscientist Jonas Fjeld.Until now, inspiration for Scandinavian sf had come mostly from Germany and France. After WWI, however, UK authors - and to some extent Italian and Russian futurists - became more noticeable. Wells, Vladimir MAYAKOVSKY, Mikhail BULGAKOV and Antonio Sant'Elia (1888-1916) represented a sort of European New Wave in the field. A very influential Swedish novel, Kallocain (1940; trans Gustav Lannestock 1966 US) by Karin BOYE drew heavily on My (written 1920; trans as We 1924 US) by Yevgeny ZAMIATIN and Soviet "machinism" theories. Then US influence grew stronger as the miseries of WWII diverted the attentions of European sf writers and readers to more important matters, such as survival. Most of Scandinavia felt the full impact of the war on its own territory, especially Finland, which had to fight Germany and the USSR both singly and simultaneously. Sweden, however, was largely outside WWII, and here the world's first weekly sf magazine, Jules Verne-Magasinet ["The Jules Verne Magazine"] started in 1940, offering mostly translated US PULP-MAGAZINE stories. It lasted 332 issues before dying in 1948; later it was resurrected as a bimonthly which is still being published. After WWII came other magazines: the Norwegian Tempo-Magazinet, the Swedish Hapna! and Galaxy, and the Finnish Aikamme. During the first boom in Scandinavian sf, in the mid-1950s, there were 4 sf magazines and over a dozen book series being published. Interest was fuelled by Harry MARTINSON's Aniara (1953 Cikada; exp 1956; trans as Aniara: A Review of Man in Time and Space 1963 UK), a book-length poem about the starship Aniara which was later made into an opera ( MUSIC); Martinson received the 1974 Nobel Prize for Literature.Unlike the case in the English-speaking countries, fantastic literature in Scandinavia - and, indeed, in mainland Europe as a whole - was never trapped in the sf ghetto; one is tempted to suggest that this was because Europe succeeded in exporting Hugo Gernsback, so that he created the sf ghetto elsewhere. Although there is in fact an unimportant fringe sf ghetto in Scandinavia - centring on cheap paperback translations from English and German that are sold at newsstands but never in bookstores - in general Scandinavian sf is published in trade editions, sold in book stores and treated by reviewers with the same respect as any other modern literature. This is because fantastic literature has always been part of the Scandinavian literary mainstream, not generally being regarded as generic; the line between sf and fantasy is very hazy, and most Scandinavian authors have at one time or another ventured into the field. The enormous popularity in Scandinavia today of Dutch and Latin American MAGIC REALISM is probably also a consequence of this historical attitude. By way of example, we can note that, when Frederik POHL's and C. M. KORNBLUTH's THE SPACE MERCHANTS (1953) first appeared in Sweden in 1962, it did so in a series of books of social criticism published by FIB, a company owned by the Labour Government.In short, Scandinavia is much like the rest of continental Europe in having no specialized sf industry but instead a lively world of fantastic literature in the old European tradition, drawing its succour from E.T.A. HOFFMANN, Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838), the German Sturm und Drang, the French 'pataphysics ( Alfred JARRY; IMAGINARY SCIENCE) and Italian and Russian Futurism, rather than from the world of English-language sf. Where GENRE SF exists, it is confined to fans and FANDOM. Much of this sort of sf has traditionally been published by specialist houses, of which Delta, in Sweden, was, until it folded in 1991, the largest, with a hardcover book series containing more than 300 volumes. Among Scandinavian authors to be published by the specialist houses are Borje Crona (1932- ), Carl Johan Holzhausen (1900-1989), Denis Lindbohm (1927- ), Bertil Martenson (1945- ) and Sven Christer Swahn (1933- ) in Sweden, Erkki Ahonen in FINLAND, Oyvind Myrhe (1945- ) in Norway and Niels E. Nielsen (1924- ) in Denmark. Sweden's Sture Lonnerstrand (1919- ) played a major role in popularizing sf, co-editing Hapna! and writing many articles and fictions, such as the juvenile Rymdhunden ["The Space Dog"] (1954). All these authors are very popular and eminently readable. However, Lindbohm, for many years a leading light in Swedish fandom, is now writing mainly about mysticism and reincarnation, while Martenson, also very popular in Sweden, now writes only FANTASY.Other sf authors have left genre sf or were never part of it, their books being usually published by mainstream houses and without the "sf" label; they include Jon Bing (1944- ) and Tor Age Bringsvaerd (1939- ) in Norway, Sam J. LUNDWALL in Sweden and Kullervo Kukkasjarvi (1938- ) in FINLAND. Bringsvaerd, in particular, is highly respected in the Scandinavian literary world as a writer of extraordinary merits, while his countryman Knut Faldbakken (1941- ) achieved international bestsellerdom with his utopian novels Aftenlandet ["The Evening Land"] (1972) and Sweetwater ["Sweetwater"] (1974). Lundwall has also written many influential CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF, which have to date (1992) been published in 32 languages. John-Henri Holmberg (1949- ), another prominent Scandinavian critic, is less known outside his native Sweden. Slightly external to the sf field are a number of MAINSTREAM WRITERS who occasionally write sf, and then almost inevitably to bestselling effect. The well known Swedish author P.C. JERSILD has written several enormously successful sf novels, including En levande sjal (1980; trans Rika Lesser as A Living Soul 1988 UK), about a disembodied brain sloshing about in a glass box, Efter floden (1982; trans Lone Tygesen Blecher and George Blecher as After the Flood 1986 UK), a post-nuclear- HOLOCAUST story, and Geniernas aterkomst ["The Return of the Geniuses"] (1987), describing mankind's history from the very beginnings to the distant future. The Swedish journalist George Johansson (1946- ) has written a very successful series of young-adult novels set against an increasingly enormous galactic backdrop, starting with Uppbrott fran Jorden ["Flight from Earth"] (1979). Among the biggest and most surprising bestsellers in Scandinavia during the 1980s were several sf novels by Peter Nilson (1937- ), starting with Arken ["The Ark"] (1982) and going through to his most recent, Avgrundsbok ["The Book of the Abyss"] (1987), about an improbable Queen of Sheba travelling in space and time. Other authors of note in this context include Anders BODELSEN in Denmark, Axel JENSEN in Norway and Per WAHLOO in Sweden.Sf in Scandinavia has been hit by the same problems as in the rest of continental Europe. Book sales are very much down in all the Scandinavian countries, and there are currently (1992) no specialist publishing houses in operation. There is only one sf magazine in Sweden - Jules Verne-Magasinet-although the Finnish SEMIPROZINE Aikakone ["Time Machine"] is thriving ( FINLAND). All told, just over 100 sf books are published each year in Scandinavia, of which about two-thirds are translations from other European languages and English. About half the total are published in Sweden which, due to its size, remains Scandinavia's leading sf nation.The first Scandinavian sf CONVENTION was held in Lund, Sweden, in 1956. Since then conventions have been held in all the Scandinavian countries, although the first Finnish convention did not come until 1982. [SJL/J-HH] SCANNERS Film (1980). Filmplan International/Canadian Film Development Corp. Written/dir David CRONENBERG, starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neal, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane, Michael Ironside. 103 mins. Colour.This superior PSI-POWERS movie easily outstrips CARRIE (1976) and The FURY (1978). Pregnant women (we learn some way into the film) have been given an experimental drug, ephemerol, ostensibly a tranquillizer but actually designed to produce paranormal offspring - scanners - who can exercise total control over the brains and nervous systems of others. The two oldest telepaths (brothers, it turns out) are corrupted - in different ways - by their power, though one (Lack) fights for human society, the other (Ironside) for the superhumans. The film is choreographed in the most exemplary manner, from the celebrated exploding-head sequence at the beginning to the final telepathic duel between the brothers and its enigmatic outcome. It is also advanced in sf terms, working sophisticated variations on the MUTANT theme, streets ahead of the usual crudities of psi-power movies. Cronenberg's restless marriage of highbrow metaphor and lowbrow exploitation seldom works better than here, despite sometimes indifferent performances, especially Lack's. The novelization is Scanners * (1981) by Leon Whiteson.Cronenberg had nothing to do with the sequels, also Canadian, of which there have been three with a fourth in production. To date these are Scanners II: The New Order (1990), Scanners III: The Takeover (1991; vt Scanner Force) and Scanner Cop (1993); the first two were directed by Christian Duguay, the third by Pierre David, and all three were produced by Rene Malo. Probably wisely, none of these even try to duplicate the sophistication and complexity of Cronenberg's vision, but they are slickly made, opting for stylised melodrama and lurid vigour in their accounts of human/scanner and good scanner/bad scanner clashes, and all retain Cronenberg's theme of telepathic powers coming at a painful cost. Scanners III is probably the most compulsive and relentless of the three, but all received more friendly attention from critics than is usual for straight-to-video exploitation film releases. [PN]See also: PSEUDO-SCIENCE. SCANNERS II: THE NEW ORDER SCANNERS. SCANNERS III: THE TAKEOVER SCANNERS. SCANNER COP SCANNERS. SCANNER FORCE SCANNERS. SCARBOROUGH, ELIZABETH ANN (1947- ) US writer whose work has long been read as fantasy, but some of whose later novels transcend genre boundaries in interesting ways. Her early novels-like her first, Song of Sorcery (1982) (see Other Works for the Argonia sequence)-tend to lightweight effects; a little later, in tales like The Drastic Dragon of Draco, Texas (1986), a more humane note can be detected; and in her finest single novel to date, The Healer's War (1988), which won the NEBULA Award, an altogether more complex kind of storytelling unfolds. The protagonist of the book is a nurse in Viet Nam; EAS's descriptions of events there are of a piece with those found in the work of Bruce MCALLISTER and Lucius SHEPARD; and the central premise-and in this too The Healer's War shares preoccupations with those other writers's work-is that it is possible to access a deeper reality, in this case via an amulet given her by a holy man, and to cure the maimed. The protagonist of Nothing Sacred (1991) and its sequel, Last Refuge (1992), is also a woman haunted by the distress of the world, this time a century hence, who discovers that the prison camp in Tibet to which she is sent is in fact Shangri-La, and that the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation is not simply a belief. Because of their detailed setting in a recognizeable world, and because the supernormal elements in each book are argued as being truly integral to that recognizeable world, it is hard to pigeonhole EAS's mature novels as either sf or fantasy. The Powers That Be (1994) with Anne aps mccaffrey is, on the other hand, romantic sf in the McCaffrey mode. [JC]Other Works: the Argonia sequence, comprising Song of Sorcery (see above) and The Unicorn Creed (1983), both assembled as Songs from the Seashell Archives #1 (omni 1987), plus Bronwyn's Bane (1983) and The Christening Quest (1985), both assembled as Songs from the Seashell Archives #2 (omni 1988); The Harem of Aman Akbar; or, The Djinn Decanted (1984); The Goldcamp Vampire; or, The Sanguinary Sourdough (1987); the Songkiller Saga sequence comprising Phantom Banjo (1991), Picking the Ballad's Bones (1991) and Strum Again? (1992); The Godmother (1994). SCARFF, WILLIAM [s] Algis BUDRYS. SCHACHNER, NAT(HANIEL) (1895-1955) US chemist, lawyer and writer, known mainly for biographies of US historical figures. He began publishing sf with "The Tower of Evil" with Arthur Leo ZAGAT for Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1930. The collaboration with Zagat lasted over a year, all NS's first 11 stories being done with him, including a novel, "Exiles of the Moon" for Wonder Stories in 1931. After they ceased collaborating, NS continued to write very prolifically for the PULP MAGAZINES, under his own name and as Chan Corbett and Walter Glamis. A novel, "Emissaries of Space" (1932), appeared in Wonder Stories Quarterly; the Revolt of the Scientists sequence appeared in Wonder Stories in 1933; and the Past Present and Future series appeared in ASF 1937-9. He published only 1 sf novel in book form, Space Lawyer (1941 ASF; fixup 1953), a humorous set of legal adventures in space. His style was rough, but he was a sharp and knowledgeable writer; his inattention to the field after about 1940 is regretted. [JC]About the author: "The Science-Fiction of Nat Schachner" by Sam MOSKOWITZ in Fantasy Commentator #43 (1992).See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; POLITICS; TIME PARADOXES; WAR. SCHAFFLER, FEDERICO [r] LATIN AMERICA. SCHATTSCHNEIDER, PETER [r] AUSTRIA. SCHEER, K(ARL)-H(ERBERT) (1928-1991) German writer, active from 1948. He published prolifically - including much sf - in the circulating-library format in which many pulp adventures appeared in postwar GERMANY; none of this material has been translated. However, translations of his novellas in the weekly DIME-NOVEL SF format of PERRY RHODAN, the enormously successful series he cofounded in 1961 with Walter Ernsting (who writes as Clark DARLTON), with whom K-HS had written collaborative works, are familiar to English-language readers. K-HS was for some time coordinator and chief author of the series. [JC/PN] SCHEERBART, PAUL [r] GERMANY. SCHELWOKAT, GUNTHER M. [r] GERMANY. SCHENCK, HILBERT (1926- ) US engineer, university lecturer and writer who published his first sf story, "Tomorrow's Weather" for FSF in 1953, long before he became seriously involved in fiction; much of his nonfiction of the 1950s and 1960s dealt lovingly with the ocean and with oceanological research and exploration technologies. His first two novels, At the Eye of the Ocean (1980) and A ROSE FOR ARMAGEDDON (1982), both set in the wave-girt Cape Cod region of New England, followed suit; they share a similar plot structure, circling in upon a central instant of space/time at which transcendence may be possible. The protagonist of the first book has an intuitive capacity to understand the inner shape of the ocean, which unveils to him a mystical enlightenment; the love-affair that drives the action of the second comes to fruition at the morphological heart of a timeslip in the centre of an ISLAND in the midst of the waters, leading to a form of liberation from the NEAR-FUTURE slide of the world into chaos. Chronosequence (1988) similarly presents its protagonist with a mystery from previous centuries whose solution involves the ocean, geography, time-slippage, and the potential redemption of the world. Though the range of HS's concerns is clearly narrow, there is nothing forced or lame in his presentation of these stories; their intensities are fluent, grounded and scientifically competent. The title story of Steam Bird (coll 1988), a somewhat heavy-handed comic tale, recounts the pioneering flight of an enormously slow steam-driven nuclear bomber. Other stories are assembled in Wave Rider (coll 1980); the best are set along the coasts of New England. But the world for which HS speaks is central; his work is never regional in its final effect. [JC]See also: ECOLOGY; END OF THE WORLD; GOTHIC SF; PASTORAL; SCIENTISTS; SOCIOLOGY; TIME PARADOXES; TIMESCAPE BOOKS; TRANSPORTATION; UNDER THE SEA. SCHIZOPHRENIA PARANOIA. SCHLOBIN, ROGER C(LARK) (1944- ) US academic and bibliographer, with the Department of English at Purdue University, Indiana. Though RCS has contributed bibliographically to the sf/fantasy field in general, it is clear that he focuses by choice on fantasy. His first book of genre interest, A Research Guide to Science Fiction Studies: An Annotated Checklist of Primary and Secondary Sources for Fantasy and Science Fiction (1977) with L.W. CURREY and Marshall B. TYMN, attempted, like many published by US academics in the 1970s, to perform the essential task of making the field accessible to scholars; and did so very well. A revised edition has been needed for many years. Also with TYMN (whom see for further details) RCS cofounded and co-edited (1976-81) the Year's Scholarship in Science Fiction and Fantasy series. Solo, he compiled The Literature of Fantasy: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Modern Fantasy (1979), which provides a listing of adult fantasy up to 1979. Other bibliographical work includes Andre Norton: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980 chap), Urania's Daughters: A Checklist of Women Science Fiction Writers, 1692-1982 (1983 chap) and the rudimentary A Glen Cook Bibliography (1983 chap) with Glen COOK. The Aesthetics of Fantasy Literature and Art (anth 1982) is a useful gathering of reprint essays, several aspiring to define the genre. RCS has ed The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts since 1988. [JC]See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; SF IN THE CLASSROOM. SCHLOCK Film (1973). Gazotski Films. Written/dir John Landis, starring Landis, Saul Kahn, Joseph Piantadosi, Eliza Garrett. 77 mins. Colour.This was the feature debut of 22-year-old Landis, who went on to bigger things with The Blues Brothers (1980) and An American Werewolf in London (1981), among others. Low-budget, made in two weeks, it is a genuinely funny and affectionate (though deeply undergraduate) parody of MONSTER MOVIES in general, and TROG (1970) and the APES-AND-CAVEMEN subgenre in particular. Landis plays the caveman Schlockthropus (in a costume designed by Rick Baker, whose effects debut this was) who gets to terrify the populace, play boogie on the piano, and form an erotic liaison with a blind girl who rejects him horrifiedly when she regains her sight because she had thought he was a dog. [PN] SCHMIDT, ARNO (OTTO) (1914-1979) German writer noted for his linguistic innovation and the swift humour of his experimental fictions, which project an air of joyfully cerebral quarrelsomeness. The marked FABULATION of sf tropes in his work is noticeable in novels like Leviathan (1949), a metaphysical train journey into death, KAFF, auch MARE CRISTUM ["KAFF, also MARE CRISTUM"] (1960), which is set on the Moon, and Schwarze Spiegel ["Black Mirrors"] (1963) - the last volume of Nobodaddys Kinder ["Nobodaddy's Children"] (1951-63) - which presents the thoughts of the last man on Earth. In Die Gelehrtenrepublik (1957; trans Michael Horovitz as The Egghead Republic: A Short Novel from the Horse Latitudes 1979 UK), which is genuine sf set in AD2008 after a nuclear HOLOCAUST, an American attempts to report home on the International Republic for Artists and Scientists, or IRAS, which is housed on a mobile island currently resting in the Sargasso Sea. But sex, mutants, language-games and chaos afflict his brief. [JC]See also: GERMANY. SCHMIDT, DENNIS (A.) (? - ) US writer who has restricted himself to series. The first was the Zen or Kensho sequence - Way-Farer (1978), Kensho (1979), Satori (1981) and Wanderer (1985) - featuring a protagonist who combines Zen and martial arts in agreeably complex SPACE-OPERA adventures. The Twilight of the Gods sequence - Twilight of the Gods: The First Name (1985), #2: Groa's Other Eye (1986) and #3: Three Trumps Sounding (1988) - is fantasy, and is likewise conceived with well orchestrated complexity. The Questioner Trilogy - Labyrinth (1989), City of Crystal Shadow (1990) and Dark Paradise (1990) - returns to intergalactic space, where the operations of a peacekeeping force are featured. DS gives some impression of being an author who might at any point decide to break through into higher regions of his art. [JC] SCHMIDT, STANLEY (ALBERT) (1944- ) US editor, writer and academic, with a PhD in physics (1969), which he taught until 1978. In that year he became editor of Analog, a position which in 1992 he retains, occupying his role in the forthright manner established by John W. CAMPBELL Jr, his most famous predecessor, but more quietly. He began publishing his own sf with "A Flash of Darkness" for ASF in 1968. His first novel, Newton and the Quasi-Apple (1970 ASF; exp 1975), is a HARD-SF exploration in PHYSICS set on a primitive planet where Newton's principles are being independently discovered, raising questions as to what kinds of knowledge are helpful - and when. The Sins of the Fathers (1976) and its sequel, Lifeboat Earth (fixup 1978), perhaps overcomplicatedly invoke an exploding Galaxy, TIME TRAVEL and more new physics in their presentation of an ALIEN race whose effective social engineering challenges Earth ( SOCIOLOGY). Tweedlioop (1986) again submits an alien - here through shipwreck - to human PERCEPTIONS, this time those of a young woman; she falls in love. Throughout his writing career, which has become less active since 1978, SS has written clear-cut tales within which nest solvable problems, and in the telling of which cogently argued hard-sf concepts are given fair play. His editorship of Analog has been similarly clear-cut, and he has maintained the journal as the primary outlet for thrusting, extroverted, problem-solving sf tales of a sort that, for many readers, continues to occupy the high road of sf. He has edited several anthologies spun-off from the journal or from UNKNOWN, its stablemate from half a century earlier. [JC]As Editor: The Analog Anthology #1: Fifty Years of the Best (anth 1980) and #2: Readers' Choice (anth 1982); Analog's Golden Anniversary Anthology (anth 1981); Analog Yearbook II (anth 1981); Analog's Lighter Side (anth 1982); Children of the Future (anth 1982); Analog: Writers' Choice (anth 1983) and Writers' Choice, Vol II (anth 1984); War and Peace: Possible Futures from Analog (anth 1983); Aliens from Analog (anth 1983); From Mind to Mind: Tales of Communication from Analog (anth 1984); Analog's Expanding Universe (anth 1986); 6 Decades: The Best of Analog (anth 1987); Unknown (anth 1988); Unknown Worlds: Tales from Beyond (anth 1988) with Martin H. GREENBERG.See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; CHILDREN IN SF. SCHMITZ, JAMES H(ENRY) (1911-1981) US writer born in Germany of US parents; he served with the USAF in WWII. His first story was "Greenface" for Unknown in 1943. From 1949, when "Agent of Vega" appeared in ASF as the first of 4 stories later assembled as Agent of Vega (coll of linked stories 1960), he regularly produced the kind of tale for which he remains most warmly remembered: SPACE-OPERA adventures, several featuring female HEROES depicted with minimum recourse to their "femininity" - they perform their active tasks, and save the Universe when necessary, in a manner almost completely free of sexual role-playing cliches.Most of his best work shares a roughly characterized common background, a Galaxy inhabited by humans and aliens with room for all and numerous opportunities for discoveries and reversals that carefully fall short of threatening the stability of that background. Many of his stories, as a result, focus less on moments of CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH than on the pragmatic operations of teams and bureaux involved in maintaining the state of things against criminals, monsters and unfriendly species; in this they rather resemble the tales of Murray LEINSTER, though they are more vigorous and less inclined to punish adventurousness. PSI POWERS are often found. At the heart of this common Universe is the Federation of the Hub or the Overgovernment. The main Hub sequence is A Tale of Two Clocks (1962; vt Legacy 1979), A Nice Day for Screaming and Other Tales of the Hub (coll 1965), The Demon Breed (1968 ASF; exp 1968) and A Pride of Monsters (coll 1970). The Telzey Amberdon books - The Universe Against Her (fixup 1964), The Telzey Toy (coll 1973) and The Lion Game (fixup 1973) - nestle conceptually within the Hub. Amberdon, a brilliant young telepath recruited by the Psychology Service of the Overgovernment as an agent, is perhaps JHS's most typical creation, and the stories in which she performs her activities are only marginally less appealing than his single finest novel, The Witches of Karres (1949 ASF; exp 1966), which features three Amberdon-like psi-powered juvenile "witches" and their rescue from slavery by a space captain in whom they induce first apoplexy and second transcendence - for he too finds superpowers within him.One novel, The Eternal Frontiers (1973), is set outside this common background; it fails to delight. The Best of James H. Schmitz (coll 1991) ed Mark L. Olson is a good conspectus. It may be that JHS's work is too pleasing to have seemed revolutionary, and indeed-with the exception of his choice of protagonists - it plays very safe with conventions; but for nearly 40 years he succeeded in demonstrating, modestly and competently, that the template of space opera could provide continuing joy. [JC]About the author: James H. Schmitz: A Bibliography (1973) by Mark OWINGS, with intro by Janet KAGAN.See also: CHILDREN IN SF; ECOLOGY; ESP; LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; SUPERMAN. SCHNABEL, JOHANN GOTTFRIED [r] GERMANY. SCHNEEMAN, CHARLES (1912-1972) US illustrator. CS was active in sf for only a short time, most of his work being for ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION from 1935. He painted 6 ASF covers, the earliest May 1938 and the last Nov 1952, but is best remembered for his interior black-and-white ILLUSTRATION in that magazine; he was its major interior artist until he joined the US Army in 1942. His best work may be the idealized sketches of the heroic Kimball Kinnison for E.E. "Doc" SMITH's Grey Lensman (1939-40 ASF; 1951) and his drawings for Jack WILLIAMSON's THE LEGION OF TIME (1938 ASF; rev 1952). After WWII he worked mainly for newspapers. [JG/PN] SCHNEER, CHARLES H. [r] Ray HARRYHAUSEN. SCHNEIDER, JOHN G. (?1908-1964) US writer whose borderline-sf novel, The Golden Kazoo (1956), satirized the Madison Avenue nature of the ( NEAR-FUTURE) 1960 presidential election, which he saw as foolishly COMPUTER-dominated. [JC] SCHOENHERR, JOHN (1935- ) US illustrator, regarded by some critics as the finest sf artist of his generation. A New Yorker who studied at the Pratt Institute, he made his sf- ILLUSTRATION debut in AMZ 1956. His work has appeared primarily in ASF (including 75 covers), but he has drawn black-and-white illustrations for other sf magazines, including Fantastic and Infinity, and has also worked for paperback publishers, most notably ACE BOOKS and Pyramid. The cover and interior illustrations he did for Frank HERBERT's Dune stories in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION (1963-5) are classics; some of the best are reproduced in The Illustrated Dune (1978) and Dune Calendar (1978). JS's style in his colour work is Impressionistic, and he is regarded by his peers as the most "painterly" in their field. Some of his earlier work shows the influence of Richard M. POWERS, one of the few sf artists he admires. He carries his painting techniques over into his black-and-white work by using a dry-brush method on rough paper or scratchboard, with fine details added by pen. His ALIENS are particularly convincing, thanks perhaps to his love for animal illustration (for which he has won numerous awards), and even his inanimate objects-like rock-forms - tend to look organic. JS received a HUGO in 1965. Dissatisfied by poor standards in sf art - "with few exceptions it's really fourth rate" - and low budgets, he left the field in 1968, returning briefly in the 1970s. [JG/PN]About the artist: "Sketches: John Schoenherr Interview" in ALGOL, Summer-Fall 1978. SCHOFIELD, ALFRED TAYLOR (1846-1929) UK medical doctor and writer whose first sf novel, Travels in the Interior, or The Wonderful Adventures of Luke and Belinda: Edited by a London Physician (1887), as by Luke Courteney, carries its protagonists, shrunk to a suitable size, on a didactic expedition through a human body ( GREAT AND SMALL). Another World, or The Fourth Dimension (1888), published as ATS, takes its two-dimensional protagonist on a similarly didactic mission from Edwin A. ABBOTT's Flatland to even more penurious Lineland, and thence into worlds of three and four DIMENSIONS, all in order to convey the truths of a dimension-encompassing Christianity. [JC] SCHOLES, ROBERT (EDWARD) (1929- ) US academic and sf critic. One of the better-known US theorists in structuralism, he is the author of a number of books on literary theory. Those with special relevance to sf are The Fabulators (1967), which deals with FABULATION, Structural Fabulation: An Essay on the Fiction of the Future (1975), Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision (1977) with Eric S. RABKIN (whom see for further details) and Fabulation and Metafiction (1979). The first two and the fourth of these are academic in approach, the second especially for its attempted definition of the sf genre ( DEFINITIONS OF SF). With George Edgar SLUSSER and Rabkin, RS edited Bridges to Fantasy (anth 1982) and Co-Ordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy (anth 1983), both collections of critical essays; he also introduced the 1975 US paperback edition of Tzvetan TODOROV's Introduction a la litterature fantastique (1970; trans as The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre 1973), and has written many shorter critical pieces on sf. [PN]See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF. SCHOLZ, CARTER (1953- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "Closed Circuit" for Clarion SF (anth 1976) ed Kate WILHELM, and whose short fiction, which appeared with some frequency for the next decade, constitutes a series of dark and fluid visions of the inhabitants of the world to come. None of these stories - like the striking "The Eve of the Last Apollo" (1977) - has been put into a CS collection (Cuts [coll 1985 chap] restricting itself to previously unpublished material). He fell almost entirely silent after 1986. CS is known mainly for his one novel, Palimpsests (1984) with Glenn Harcourt; its dense, refractive, ruminative, palimpsest-laden style more than amply surrounds the story of an archaeologist yanked from brooding internal and external exile by the discovery of a dizzyingly anachronistic object at a Neanderthal dig. TIME PARADOXES are alluded to, but with something like ABSURDIST torpor, and the novel ends in dark irresolution, in an epiphany of flow - "of landho that would never quite achieve landfall" - which simultaneously moves and irritates the reader. [JC] SCHOMBURG, ALEX (1905- ) US illustrator and COMIC-book artist; he has also spelled his name Schomberg. His first assignment was for Hugo GERNSBACK in 1925; he did his first cover in that year for SCIENCE AND INVENTION. During his 65-year career, which extended into the 1980s with covers for ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, he worked for many magazines, including AMZ, TWS, FSF, Fantastic and Startling Stories. He also painted book covers, primarily for ACE BOOKS and Winston Books (their "juvenile" sf series of the 1950s, for which he also designed the endpapers). His ILLUSTRATION is realistic, versatile and assured, usually eschewing bright colours; he was known as "king of the airbrush". Important in the comics industry as well, he worked on many of the Timely Comics (now MARVEL COMICS) titles, helping develop Captain America and Sub-Mariner. In 1990 he was awarded a Special Award by the World Science Fiction Convention; he has also won the Lensman Award (1979) and the Frank R. Paul Award (1984). His work is showcased in Chroma: The Art of Alex Schomburg (1986), text by Jon Gustafson. [JG] SCHOONOVER, LAWRENCE (1906-1980) US writer best known for his many historical novels. Central Passage (1962) is set after a nuclear HOLOCAUST has demolished the Isthmus of Panama, set the oceans astir and initiated a new ice age, whose escalation is averted through a successful attempt to block the Isthmus again. In the meantime, atomic radiation has caused mutations, resulting in a breed of SUPERMEN destined to inherit the Earth. [JC] SCHORER, MARK [r] August DERLETH. SCHULMAN, J(OSEPH) NEIL (1953- ) US writer whose books have been very influential in the LIBERTARIAN-SF movement. Alongside Night (1979) describes the salvation of a future USA (whose economy has been destroyed by government intervention in the free market) by a hard-cash underground economy evolved from today's black market. The political message is reasonably unobtrusive, though non-libertarians may find the somewhat casual attitude taken towards the killing of tax collectors upsetting. The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Logosata Form (1983), generally considered inferior, is interesting for its portrayal of a DYSTOPIA judged against libertarian values rather than (as is more usual) humanist ones, as well as for its depiction of laser-generated visuals ( ARTS) as a means of artistic expression. Like many libertarian authors, JNS is a competent thriller writer whose books are fundamentally motivated by a combination of moral outrage and a fascination with the hardware of politics and economics. [NT] SCHUTZ, J(OSEPH) W(ILLARD) (1912-1984) US writer, mostly of short stories, and diplomat who graduated in science and later from the US Counter-Insurgency School. He was in his 50s when - to give himself something to do while stationed in West Africa - he began writing sf, with "Maiden Voyage" for FSF in 1965. His two adventure-sf novels are People of the Rings (1975 UK) and The Moon Microbe (1976 UK). He wrote thrillers as Jerry Scholl. [PN] SCHUYLER, GEORGE S(AMUEL) (1895-1977) US writer whose sf, normally written as by Samuel I. Brooks, appeared obscurely in PULP MAGAZINES between the Wars. In his first sf novel, Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940 (1931) as GSS, a cosmetic treatment is discovered which will bleach Blacks. In treating this innovation in terms of SATIRE GSS, himself Black, acerbically targeted both Blacks and Whites. Black Empire (1936-8 Pittsburgh Courier as by Samuel I. Brooks; 1991), intro by John A. WILLIAMS, pits Blacks against Whites in pulp terms, and ends in the creation of a Black UTOPIA. [PN/JC]See also: POLITICS. SCHWARTZ, ALAN (? - ) US writer whose The Wandering Tellurian (1967 dos) is appropriately titled: its Terran protagonist travels through space, having adventures. [JC] SCHWARTZ, JULIUS (1915- ) US agent and editor, born Bronx, New York. JS met his lifelong friend and colleague Mort WEISINGER at a meeting of the Scienceers sf group in 1931. Together they published the first true FANZINE, The Time Traveller (1932), and the later fanzine, Science Fiction Digest (1932), which in 1934 became FANTASY MAGAZINE, though Weisinger was not officially an editor on the latter. In 1934 they founded Solar Sales Service, the first literary agency to specialize in sf; early clients included Henry L. HASSE, David H. KELLER, P. Schuyler MILLER and Stanley G. WEINBAUM. When Weisinger became editor of THRILLING WONDER STORIES in 1936, JS ran the agency alone for the next 10 years, new clients including Alfred BESTER, Otto Binder ( Eando BINDER), Leigh BRACKETT, Ray BRADBURY, John Russell FEARN and Manly Wade WELLMAN.At Bester's suggestion, JS became editor at All-American Comics (later part of DC COMICS) in Feb 1944. In the mid-1950s he played a major role in the DC revival of the SUPERHERO with new versions of earlier characters, many utilizing sf themes. These included The Flash (police scientist who gains superspeed in accident), Green Lantern (test pilot given power ring by alien Guardians from the planet Oa so that he can police this sector of space), Hawkman (policeman from the planet Thanagar operating on Earth), Adam Strange (Earthman who becomes protector of the planet Rann) and The Atom (scientist with the ability to become smaller - JS called this character, in his civilian identity, Ray Palmer, Raymond A. PALMER being the shortest of all sf editors). JS also revived the flagging fortunes of Batman by giving it a "new look". When Weisinger left DC in 1971, JS took over as SUPERMAN editor. He left this position in 1986 to edit the shortlived DC SF Graphic Album adaptations (1985-7), whose titles in publication order were: Hell on Earth (1942 Weird Tales; graph 1985) by Robert BLOCH, Nightwings (1968 Gal; graph 1985) by Robert SILVERBERG, Frost & Fire (1946 Planet Stories as "The Land that Time Forgot"; graph 1985) by Ray Bradbury, Merchants of Venus (graph 1986) from the 1971 novella by Frederik POHL, Demon with a Glass Hand (graph 1986) from the 1964 Outer Limits tv script by Harlan ELLISON, The Magic Goes Away (graph 1986) from the 1978 book by Larry NIVEN and Sandkings (1979 Omni; graph 1987) by George R.R. MARTIN. The line was a commercial failure, and JS gave up editing to become a consultant to DC and "a goodwill ambassador for DC . . . to various conventions". [RH] SCHWARZ, MAURICIO-JOSE (1955- ) Mexican writer who for 7 years had an sf column in the daily newspaper Excelsior. He is the author of about 50 short stories, many sf or horror. M-JS was the first winner (1984) of the Puebla Award ( LATIN AMERICA) for Best SF Short Story in Mexico with his story "La pequena guerra" ["The Smallest War"]. Some of his stories are collected in Escenas de la realidad virtual ["Scenes from Virtual Reality"] (coll 1991). M-JS founded (1991) and edits an sf SEMIPROZINE, Estacosa ["Thisthing"]. He is part-author of the LATIN AMERICA entry in this encyclopedia. [PN] SCHWEITZER, DARRELL (CHARLES) (1952- ) US critic, editor and writer who began publishing stories of genre interest with "Come to Mother" for Weirdbook #4 in 1971, but who spent his energies very variously for many years, coming initially to notice with a series of critical studies including Lovecraft in the Cinema (1975 chap), The Dream Quest of H.P. Lovecraft (1978 chap), Conan's World and Robert E. Howard (1979 chap), On Writing Science Fiction (The Editors Strike Back!) (1981) with John M. FORD and George H. SCITHERS, Constructing Scientifiction & Fantasy (1982 chap) with John Ashmead and Scithers, and Pathways to Elfland: The Writings of Lord Dunsany (1989). During this period he also served as editorial assistant at IASFM 1977-82 and at AMZ 1982-6. With John BETANCOURT and Scithers he then restarted WEIRD TALES (1987-current) with #290. Also with Scithers, he ed 2 anthologies of CLUB STORIES: Tales from the Spaceport Bar (anth 1987) and Another Round at the Spaceport Bar (anth 1989).DS's fiction, which sometimes tends to a grimly brisk SCIENCE-FANTASY diction, includes We are All Legends (coll of linked stories 1981), The Shattered Goddess (1982), a FAR-FUTURE fantasy which moves into dark regions, Tom O'Bedlam's Night Out, and Other Strange Excursions (coll 1985), The Meaning of Life, and Other Awesome Cosmic Revelations (coll 1988 chap) and The White Isle (1980 Fantastic; rev 1990). [JC]As Editor: Some of the SF Voices series of interviews, those for which he was responsible including SF Voices (anth 1976), Science Fiction Voices #1 (anth 1979) and Science Fiction Voices #5 (anth 1982 chap); Essays Lovecraftian (anth 1977; rev vt Discovering H.P. Lovecraft 1987); Exploring Fantasy Worlds (anth 1985); Discovering Modern Horror Fiction #1 (anth 1985) and #2 (anth 1988); Discovering Stephen King (anth 1985)Discovering Classic Horror Fiction I (anth 1992); Lord Dunsany: A Bibliography (1993) with S. T. Joshi (1958- ); Speaking of Horror: Interviews with Writers of the Supernatural (1994). SCHWERIN, DORIS H(ALPERN) (1922- ) US composer and writer whose The Rainbow Walkers (1985; vt The Missing Years 1986 UK) is an intermittently moving sf tale involving CRYONICS and their consequences. [JC] SCIENCE AND INVENTION US monthly BEDSHEET-size popular-science magazine, slick paper. 220 issues May 1913-Aug 1931. Published 1913-29 by Experimenter Publishing Co. ; ed Hugo GERNSBACK until his bankruptcy in 1929, thereafter ed anon. SAI was not a new magazine but a retitling (from Aug 1920) of Gernsback's Electrical Experimenter, founded May 1913, itself modelled on Modern Electrics, an earlier Gernsback magazine (1908-13), in which his novel Ralph 124C 41+ (1911-12; 1925) had first appeared. The Aug 1923 issue of SAI was a special "Scientific Fiction" number with a cover by Howard V. BROWN, and was effectively Gernsback's first sf magazine. Both before and after this, however, SAI (whose main content was science articles) regularly featured sf stories and novels - notably 3 serials by Ray CUMMINGS and also A. MERRITT's "The Metal Emperor" (1920 Argosy; rev 1927-8 SAI; vt The Metal Monster 1946).The most typical writer of Gernsbackian SCIENTIFICTION was perhaps Clement FEZANDIE: almost all of his Dr Hackensaw series - 39 short stories and "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1925), a 4-part serialized novel - was published in SAI (2 final stories were published in AMZ). These are wooden as narratives, but contain lively ideas about new inventions, including ROBOTS, tv and brainwashing through dissolution of neural ganglia; Hackensaw even experiences weightlessness, on a trip to the Moon. After founding AMAZING STORIES in Apr 1926, Gernsback naturally used there most of the sf he bought, but sf serials (including Merritt's, noted above) continued in SAI until 1928. SAI was in fact a more commercially successful magazine than AMZ, with a formula not unlike that of OMNI today. [PN/MJE/FHP] SCIENCE FANTASY 1. In the TERMINOLOGY of sf readers, and more especially publishers, this term has never been clearly defined, although it was the title of a well known UK magazine 1950-66 ( 2), which was also the period when the term was most in general use. More recently it has been partially superseded by the terms SWORD AND SORCERY and HEROIC FANTASY, but it differs from these two categories in that Science Fantasy does not necessarily contain MAGIC, GODS AND DEMONS, HEROES, MYTHOLOGY or SUPERNATURAL CREATURES, though these may be present, often in a quasirationalized form. Science Fantasy is normally considered a bastard genre blending elements of sf and fantasy; it is usually colourful and often bizarre, sometimes with elements of HORROR although never centrally in the horror genre. Certain sf themes are especially common in Science Fantasy - ALTERNATE WORLDS, other DIMENSIONS, ESP, MONSTERS, PARALLEL WORLDS, PSI POWERS and SUPERMEN - but no single one of these ingredients is essential. Many Science Fantasies are also PLANETARY ROMANCES (many of the books so described in this volume can be regarded as Science Fantasy). A good discussion of the term, which very nearly builds to a definition through the accretion of examples, is "Science Fantasy" by Brian Attebery in Dictionary of Literary Biography: Volume Eight: Twentieth-Century American Science-Fiction Writers: Part 2: M-Z (1981) ed David Cowart and Thomas L. Wymer. Attebery cites the following as among the more important US authors of Science Fantasy: Marion Zimmer BRADLEY, Edgar Rice BURROUGHS, L. Sprague DE CAMP and Fletcher PRATT, Samuel R. DELANY, Anne MCCAFFREY, Andre NORTON, Jack VANCE, John VARLEY, Roger ZELAZNY and Gene WOLFE (indeed, in the 1980s Wolfe practically resuscitated the genre single-handedly), to which list should certainly be added Joan D. VINGE and (especially the former) C.L. MOORE and Henry KUTTNER. Attebery also makes special mention of The Deep (1975) by John CROWLEY. [PN]2. UK DIGEST-size magazine published from Summer 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to NEW WORLDS, subsequently taken over by Roberts & Vinter in June/July 1964, thereafter in a paperback-size format. 81 issues appeared as SF Summer 1950-Feb 1966, and 12 more Mar 1966-Feb 1967 as Impulse (Mar-July 1966) and SF Impulse (Aug 1966-Feb 1967). #1 and #2 were ed Walter GILLINGS; John CARNELL then took over until Nova folded. The Roberts & Vinter version was ed until Sep 1966 Kyril Bonfiglioli; the last 5 issues were ed Harry HARRISON and Keith ROBERTS.SF was numbered consecutively from #1 to #81 (Feb 1966). Numeration was begun again with the title change to Impulse, in Mar 1966, with 1 vol of 12 numbered issues (hence Impulse is sometimes regarded as a separate magazine). Early on SF appeared irregularly, with only 6 issues 1950-53, but from Mar 1954 an uneasy bimonthly schedule began, lapsing to quarterly every now and then, improving in the late 1950s. A regular monthly schedule ran from Mar 1965 to the end.SF used offbeat FANTASY together with some sf not too different from that published in its companion, NW (but only rarely the kind of whimsical story associated with the US UNKNOWN). While Carnell was editing both, SF tended to use stories of greater length than NW, including numerous novellas. Many of its lead stories were supplied by John BRUNNER, Kenneth BULMER and Michael MOORCOCK, all of whom published some of their best early work in its pages. SF also published the first stories of Brian W. ALDISS and J.G. BALLARD, and part of Aldiss's first sf novel, Non-Stop (1956; exp 1958; rev vt Starship US 1959) and virtually all the important early work of Thomas Burnett SWANN. After Bonfiglioli became editor in 1964, Keith ROBERTS, Christopher PRIEST, Josephine SAXTON and Brian STABLEFORD all made their debuts in the magazine, and the early Impulse issues featured Keith Roberts's Pavane stories (Mar-July 1966; fixup 1968). During Carnell's incumbency SF published material of a higher quality than its companion, but after its sale in 1964 - despite Bonfiglioli and his editorial successors buying some good material - it was overshadowed by Moorcock's NW, with which it ultimately merged. NW and SF were the best sf magazines published in the UK before INTERZONE joined them in this category.The cover art of SF was intermittently of a high standard, especially that by Brian LEWIS, who did most of the covers 1958-61, and Keith Roberts, who did nearly all the covers from 1965 until the end. Roberts's bold semi-abstractions were quite outside the conventions of genre-sf ILLUSTRATION, and Lewis's surreal landscapes, reminiscent of the work of Max Ernst (1891-1976), were also unusual. [BS]3. Variant title of SCIENCE FANTASY YEARBOOK.See also: FANTASY REVIEW. SCI FI FILMS There have always been clashes between science fiction purists and sci-fi fans. Some of the fiercest discussions have centered on the subject of film.In 1936, thirteen episodes of Flash Gordon were released, and their popularity was overwhelming. In their action-packed plots and characters, these two-reelers much resembled what was being published by the magazines and pulps of the time.But by the 1950s, the paths of print and film diverged. While science fiction writing was becoming more sophisticated and science-based, the decade of the monster movie had arrived. And some of the monsters looked pretty cut-rate.By 1977, Steven Spielberg was spending - and making - millions with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. George Lucas hit it big with Star Wars. But many members of the science fiction-reading public thought that these films were simply wish fulfillment or slam-bang space opera.One film that seemed to transcend all categories was 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film was directed by Stanley Kubrick, with a screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke. This 1968 film still retains the intellectual complexity and the visual jolt that it did thirty years ago. SF fans point to it as proof positive that film CAN capture the magic and challenge of science fiction. SCIENCE FICTION YEARBOOK TREASURY OF GREAT SCIENCE FICTION STORIES. SF YEARBOOK: A TREASURY OF SCIENCE FICTION TREASURY OF GREAT SCIENCE FICTION STORIES. SCIENCE STORIES US DIGEST-size magazine. 4 bimonthly issues, Oct 1953-Apr 1954. #1 was published by Bell Publications, Chicago, the rest by Palmer Publications, Evanston; ed Raymond A. PALMER and Bea Mahaffey. SS printed no notable fiction, but was nicely illustrated by Hannes BOK, Virgil FINLAY and others. UNIVERSE SCIENCE FICTION, effectively a continuation of OTHER WORLDS, was a companion magazine. Some magazine historians regard SS as likewise a (shorter and cheaper) continuation of Other Worlds, since it began shortly after Other Worlds's first demise and announced that it was using Other Worlds's inventory of stories, but it was the numeration of Universe that Other Worlds adopted when Universe changed its title back to Other Worlds in 1955. [FHP/PN] SCIENCE WONDER QUARTERLY WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY. SCIENCE WONDER STORIES US BEDSHEET-size magazine. 12 monthly issues June 1929-May 1930, published by Stellar Publishing Corp.; ed Hugo GERNSBACK.After Gernsback lost control of his first fully sf magazine, AMAZING STORIES, in 1929, he rapidly made a comeback with a new company and 2 new magazines, SWS and, a month later, AIR WONDER STORIES. "SCIENCE WONDER STORIES are clean, CLEAN from beginning to end. They stimulate only one thing - IMAGINATION," he wrote in the first editorial. His policy, as usual, was to emphasize the didactic aspects of sf, and he claimed that every story had been passed by "an array of authorities and educators". SWS dealt with all aspects of science, unlike Air Wonder Stories, but in fact they used much the same authors and similar material, and it was logical, after a year, to amalgamate them, as WONDER STORIES. SWS was a handsome magazine, all the covers being by Frank R. PAUL. Authors included Miles J. BREUER, Stanton A. COBLENTZ, David H. KELLER (in 10 of the 12 issues), Laurence MANNING, Fletcher PRATT, Harl VINCENT and Jack WILLIAMSON. Raymond Z. GALLUN made his debut here. [PN] SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE MONTHLY US BEDSHEET-size magazine. 10 monthly issues Jan-Oct 1930, published by Techni-Craft Publishing Co.; ed Hugo GERNSBACK, with Arthur B. REEVE as editorial consultant. #6-#10 were entitled Amazing Detective Tales, but Scientific Detective Monthly more accurately described the magazine's contents. Most issues included Craig Kennedy stories by Arthur B. Reeve and collaborations by Edwin BALMER and William McHarg. A number of stories had sf elements (murder by X-ray, whisky contaminated by hormones), though few were true sf, an exception being "Murder in the Fourth Dimension" in #10, by Clark Ashton SMITH.SDM was a sister magazine to SCIENCE WONDER STORIES and AIR WONDER STORIES. Another magazine, Amazing Detective Stories, was published during 1931 with volume numbering suggesting that it was a continuation of Amazing Detective Tales, from a new publisher, Fiction Publishers Inc. This magazine, however, carried no fantasy. [FHP] SCIENTIFIC ERRORS Scientific errors in sf are not to be confused with IMAGINARY SCIENCE, where the author invents the science and tries to make it plausible, nor with PSEUDO-SCIENCE, where the author adheres to some alternative quasiscientific system unrecognized by the majority of the scientific community. Scientific errors are here taken to mean plain mistakes.Sf in the days of the PULP MAGAZINES was very much more prone to error than it is now, and it was for the absurdity of so much of the science, at least in part, that pulp sf (particularly in the 1930s) got a bad name; schoolteachers and parents were justifiably worried by its innumeracy as well as its illiteracy. Most sf written since the 1960s will pass scientific muster even with readers who have a little university-level science, but the excesses of the 1920s and 1930s must have been obvious even to many readers who had only a smattering of high-school science. Of course, some elementary errors can be hard to pick up. Hal CLEMENT cites stories in which myopic characters' spectacles are used to concentrate the Sun's rays and light a fire; Clement points out that these would in fact disperse the rays. By contrast, in The Tomorrow People (1960) Judith MERRIL used a helicopter for transport on the Moon, even though most schoolboys could have told her that it would not work without air.Some errors are notorious. When Jules VERNE uses a gun to shoot travellers at the Moon, he ignores the fact that the acceleration would leave them as a thin red smear on the back wall of the cabin. The canali or channels which the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910) thought he saw on MARS were wrongly translated into English as "canals", and hence Edgar Rice BURROUGHS and many others felt justified in placing intelligent life there.The history of pulp sf is full of examples of writers using PARSECS as a unit of velocity instead of distance, of confusing weight with mass (so that in space we have heroes able to push several tons of spaceship along with their finger) and, most commonly of all, of exceeding the speed of light without any sort of justification ( FASTER THAN LIGHT), as in A.E. VAN VOGT's "The Storm" (1943): "Half a light year a minute; it would take a while to attain that speed, but - in eight hours they'd strike the storm." (The same story has a hero with a second brain which has an IQ of 917, as if somehow the exact figure might mean something.) Certain themes, such as ANTIGRAVITY and ANTIMATTER, have notoriously resulted in schoolboy howlers in much sf. In the pulp era ROCKETS would regularly perform manoeuvres, just like a car doing a U-turn. In fact, as most of us know in the space age, if you use gyros to turn a rocket it will continue in the same direction, unless another rocket blast is given in the new orientation to counter the original forward momentum. Nonetheless, STAR WARS (like many cinematic SPACE OPERAS since) has spacecraft taking part in what look like WWI dogfights. John W. CAMPBELL Jr, the man who was supposed to have done more than any other to put the science back in sf, was quite happy to publicize what he called the Dean Drive (ASF 1960), a proposed propulsion device which depends on violating the conservation of momentum: it pushes against itself. This is on a par with the "inertialess drive" which propelled E.E. "Doc" SMITH's spaceships at fantastic velocity. Another favourite of the pulps was the electromagnetic spectrum, which was regularly rifled by writers in search of mysterious "rays" which would have almost magical effects. Magnetism was yet another favourite, and all sorts of remarkably cock-eyed schemes were cooked up to exploit its hitherto unknown properties (though here we reach an area of overlap between straightforward scientific errors and imaginary science). An especially enjoyable biological howler was the notion, common on pulp magazine covers, that aliens would lust after human women, especially if partially unclad, this being on a par with men lusting after squids. Nevertheless, James TIPTREE Jr made rather a good thing out of a similar notion in "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" (1972), the ultimate exogamy story. And nearly all stories in the pulps about submicroscopic worlds ( GREAT AND SMALL) used a model of the atom - seen as a kind of solid, spherical ball - which had been out of date for at least half a century by 1920. Ray CUMMINGS, several of whose heroes shrink and have adventures on atoms, was a noteworthy offender.Excesses of this kind still exist, of course, especially in the lowest echelons, but Robert A. HEINLEIN and Isaac ASIMOV did much in the 1940s to bring scientific responsibility to sf, and their work was continued by Poul ANDERSON, James BLISH, Hal CLEMENT, Larry NIVEN and many others. If they committed errors, they mostly did so because they could not resist certain dramatic plot turns, like the end of Poul Anderson's Tau Zero (1970), where the crew of a spaceship survive to witness the ultimate collapse of the Universe into the monobloc - despite the fact that, in such a scenario, the whole of space would collapse: the very concept of being "outside" the monobloc is a contradiction in terms. Nevertheless, there are still novels being published which would not put the pulps to shame. Battlefield Earth (1982) by L. Ron HUBBARD was a classic example, containing such lunacies as invading aliens who are said to come from another Universe whose Periodic Table contains elements different from the ones we have here.Sf in the CINEMA and on TELEVISION, moreover, is generally still about as scientifically illiterate as was pulp sf of the 1930s. SPACE 1999 was a particularly bad offender. Bob SHAW has several times expressed amazement at the way that in STAR TREK, when the Enterprise is buffeted about (as it frequently is), the crew are invariably thrown from their seats. Why, asks Shaw, in this supertechnological future, has the concept of seat-belts been forgotten? A particularly irritating error, almost invariable in film and tv, is the audibility of explosions in space (as in Star Wars and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA); it is apparently believed that, if the audience can't hear the bangs, they'll all go home or change channels. TOTAL RECALL (1990) showed that things had not got much better, with at least two notable howlers. The first is the idea that, if you puncture a stationary pressurized dome, normal air pressure will be sufficient to produce hurricane winds that whip people and furniture out through the hole. (People do get sucked out of aeroplanes, but only because they are moving at 600mph.) Even stranger was the notion that oxygen deprivation and near vacuum give people eyes the size of tangerines, a phenomenon they can sustain for some minutes without suffering damage. MONSTER MOVIES very often depend on giant ants, spiders, etc. In fact, such creatures could not exist; they would collapse under their own weight, not having legs, like the elephant's, designed to prop them up. Many problems arise with increases in scale, one of them being that the ratio between skin area and internal capacity does not stay the same, hence throwing the physiology of the body completely askew. Flying men are probably impossible, though Poul Anderson made a valiant attempt to rationalize them scientifically in War of the Wing-Men (1958; rev vt The Man who Counts 1978), greatly increasing their lung capacity and incorporating other necessary design changes.Errors in sf are less common in the SOFT SCIENCES, perhaps because these are subject to less rigorous laws, but nonetheless absurdities do occur. It is commonly supposed that, if we had telepathy, we could understand aliens by bypassing language; however, there is strong evidence that we actually think in language, in which case telepathy probably would not work efficiently between different nationalities, let alone between us and the Rigelians. Brainwashing, and mental conditioning generally, are in sf usually based on Pavlov's behavioural psychology rather than on B.F. SKINNER's; that is, carried out through aversion and punishment, not through reward, even though the latter system has been amply demonstrated to be more efficient, and presents, perhaps, moral issues of a more subtle and interesting kind. [PN/JS] SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE The most common generic term applied to UK sf in the years before the end of WWII, at which time the "science fiction" label became sufficiently commonplace to displace it; for several decades thereafter, the styles and concerns of US GENRE SF dominated. C.H. HINTON issued 2 series of Scientific Romances (colls 1886 and 1898) mixing speculative essays and stories, and the term was widely applied by reviewers and essayists to the early novels of H.G. WELLS, which became the key exemplars of the genre. When listing his titles Wells usually lumped his sf and fantasy novels together as "fantastic and imaginative romances"", but he eventually chose to label the collection of his best-known sf novels "The Scientific Romances of H.G. Wells (omni 1933), thus securing the term's definitive status. Brian M. STABLEFORD has recently revived the term in order to facilitate the comparison and contrast of the distinct UK and US traditions of speculative fiction; his study of the UK genre's separate evolution before the triumph of genre sf is Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950 (1985). In that book, and in entries throughout this encyclopedia (see in particular EVOLUTION, RELIGION), the term can be seen as tending to describe works characterized by long evolutionary perspectives; by an absence of much sense of the frontier and a scarcity of the kind of PULP-MAGAZINE-derived HERO who is designed to penetrate any frontier available; and in general by a tone moderately less hopeful about the future than that typical of genre sf until recent decades ( OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM).A few modern writers have found the term a convenient rubric for offbeat works; examples include Christopher PRIEST for The Space Machine (1976) and Kim Stanley ROBINSON for The Memory of Whiteness (1985). [BS] SCIENTIFICTION 1. Term coined by Hugo GERNSBACK as a contraction of "scientific fiction" and defined by him in the first issue of AMAZING STORIES in Apr 1926 ( DEFINITIONS OF SF). It never became very popular, and within a decade of its coining was largely replaced by "science fiction". When used now it usually refers to the awkward, technology-oriented fiction published by Gernsback or, disparagingly, to modern equivalents. Attempts to re-establish the term in a positive sense have failed.2. Fanzine (1937-8). FANTASY REVIEW. [PN] SCIENTISTS Scientists in pre-20th-century sf often exhibited symptoms of social maladjustment, sometimes to the point of insanity; they were characteristically obsessive and antisocial. Some scientists were quasidiabolical figures, like Coppelius in E.T.A. HOFFMANN's "The Sandman" (1816) or Mary SHELLEY's eponymous Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831); others were ridiculous, like those in the third book of Jonathan SWIFT's Gulliver's Travels (1726). In Honore de BALZAC's La recherche de l'absolu (1834; 1st trans as The Philosopher's Stone 1844 US) scientific research becomes an unholy addiction. Such stories make it clear that the scientist had inherited the mantle (and the public image) of medieval alchemists, astrologers and sorcerers, and certain aspects of this image proved extraordinarily persistent; its vestiges remain even today, with sciencefictional alchemical romances still featuring in the work of authors like Charles L. HARNESS. The founding fathers of sf, Jules VERNE (Nemo and Robur) and H.G. WELLS (Moreau, Griffin and Cavor), frequently represented scientists as eccentric and obsessive; Robert Louis STEVENSON's Dr Jekyll is cast from the same anxious mould, as is Maurice RENARD's Dr Lerne; and Arthur Conan DOYLE's Professor Challenger is not so very different. A detailed analysis of the process of scientific creativity as a species of madness is presented in J.S. FLETCHER's Morrison's Machine (1900).By the end of the 19th century, however, other images of the scientist were beginning to appear. The US public made a hero of Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), and this admiration for the clever inventor is reflected in much popular fiction ( EDISONADE). The great man himself is featured in VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM's L'Eve Future (1886) and Garrett P. SERVISS's Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898; 1947), and a DIME-NOVEL SF series featured Tom Edison Jr. Other scientists who attracted hero-worship included Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) and Albert Einstein (1879-1955), although Einstein's ideas were so non-commonsensical that they were accepted by many as a proof of the oddity of scientists. One wholehearted hero-worshipper of scientists was Hugo GERNSBACK, and he gave voice to this sentiment in Ralph 124C 41+ (1911-12 Modern Electrics; 1925). The scientist-as- HERO thus entered pulp sf at its very inception, alongside the eccentric genius - although many of the heroic scientists of pulp sf were simply stock pulp heroes with scientific prowess improbably grafted on: E.E. "Doc" SMITH's Richard Seaton is a cardinal example. Scientists in the early sf pulps were often eccentric and absentminded, and the demands of melodrama required many to turn their hands to criminal enterprises, but they were rarely outright nuts, after the fashion of such cinematic figures as the title-characters of DOCTOR X (1932) and DR CYCLOPS (1940) and such non-genre arch-villains as Dr Munsker in The Devil's Highway (1932) by Harold Bell WRIGHT and John Lebar.As pulp sf matured there was a significant shift in the characterization of the scientist hero. Especially in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION, the role of the theoretical genius was de-emphasized relative to that of the practical-minded engineer; archetypal examples of this species were the personnel of George O. SMITH's Venus Equilateral (coll 1947), forever scribbling equations and designs on the tablecloths in Joe's Bar. The presumed essence of real genius remained as wayward as ever, however: Henry KUTTNER's inventor Galloway Gallegher always made his marvellous machines while blind drunk and could never remember afterwards how he had done it. Hero-worship of the scientific genius was further extended by Isaac ASIMOV, whose Foundation series was the first notable work to elevate a social scientist to that status. Outside the sf magazines, a more realistic image of the work and social situation of the scientist was depicted in E.C. LARGE's cynical Sugar in the Air (1937), which features a visionary and idealistic scientist at odds with his stupid and irrational employers. In the post-WWII decade this kind of image became much more common - notably in several novels by Edward HYAMS, including Not in Our Stars (1949), and in many magazine stories.Genre-sf writers mostly responded to the widespread popular opinion that TECHNOLOGY had got out of hand by putting the blame on machine-users rather than machine-makers, claiming that it was not mad scientists but mad generals and mad politicians who were the problem; nuclear scientists were often represented as isolated paragons of sanity locked into a political and military matrix that threatened the destruction of the world ( NUCLEAR POWER). The US security clampdown of the 1950s emphasized the new social situation of the scientist and provoked a wave of sf stories dealing with the morality of carrying out research which had potential military applications, and with the difficulty of making scientific discoveries in such circumstances. An effective vignette dealing with the conscience of the scientist who watches his discoveries in action is C.M. KORNBLUTH's "The Altar at Midnight" (1952); the most dramatic depiction of the conflict between scientific interests and military security is Algis BUDRYS's WHO? (1958). Later tales of scientists in conflict with the demands made by society include Theodore STURGEON's "Slow Sculpture" (1970), Bob SHAW's Ground Zero Man (1971), D.G. COMPTON's The Steel Crocodile (1970 US; vt The Electric Crocodile 1970 UK) and James P. HOGAN's The Genesis Machine (1978). Non-genre writers continued to have less sympathy with scientists; irresponsible or outrightly mad scientists continued to appear in some profusion - notable examples include Peter GEORGE's Dr Strangelove in DR STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1963) and Felix Hoenikker in Kurt VONNEGUT Jr's Cat's Cradle (1963). Outside the protective walls of the sf genre these sinister figures easily outnumbered scientists credited with the noblest of ideals and motives; Pierre BOULLE's Garden on the Moon (1965), which shows German rocket scientists thinking only of the Moon and SPACE FLIGHT while working on the V2, is a vivid exception. The advent of technologies like GENETIC ENGINEERING has helped sustain the routine demonization of scientists in films and horror stories.In modern sf, scientists have become rather less common, at least as major characters. Writers who are not scientists themselves have become increasingly wary of the difficulties involved in presenting a convincing picture of scientists at work in the laboratory. Sf writers who are scientists are far more ready to accept the challenge - see Great Science Fiction by Scientists (anth 1962) ed Groff CONKLIN and The Expert Dreamers (anth 1962) ed Frederik POHL - and the fictions of many science-trained writers are regularly featured in the pages of Analog. But even they often find it difficult to picture the kinds of equipment which will fill the laboratories of the future, and the kinds of work which will be done there. Scientists who have written notable sf about the scientists of the future include Gregory BENFORD, David BRIN, Paul DAVIES, Robert L. FORWARD, Fred HOYLE and Philip LATHAM. Many Eastern European writers are practising scientists. (Communist sf characteristically put forward a determinedly positive image of scientists and their endeavours, although there are some very uneasy compromises with this orthodoxy in the work of Arkady and Boris STRUGATSKI.) Many writers of HARD SF are also popular-science writers of note, and they too have useful expertise which they can and do deploy in their fiction; notable examples include Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. CLARKE and John GRIBBIN.The most effective picture of near-contemporary scientists at work in recent sf is probably Gregory Benford's TIMESCAPE (1980); other notable examples are Kate WILHELM's The Clewiston Test (1976), Hilbert SCHENCK's A ROSE FOR ARMAGEDDON (1982), Paul PREUSS's Broken Symmetries (1983) and Jack MCDEVITT's The Hercules Text (1986). The most memorable attempt at characterizing a scientific genius in recent years is Ursula K. LE GUIN's Shevek in The Dispossessed (1974); there are several charming but less earnest portraits in the work of Vadim SHEFNER.A useful article (with a bibliography listing various earlier sources) on the theme is "Scientists in Science Fiction: Enlightenment and After" by Patrick PARRINDER in Science Fiction: Roots and Branches (1990) ed Rhys Garnett and R.J. Ellis. A good book on the subject is From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature (1994) by Roslynn D. Haynes; it deals with genre sf as well as mainstream fiction. [BS] SCIENTOLOGY In its early years Scientology was known as DIANETICS (which see for details), a term still used within Scientology. The word "Scientology" was coined in 1952 by L. Ron HUBBARD, its founder; 2 of his books on the subject are This is Scientology: The Science of Certainty (1955 UK) and Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought (1956 UK).The activities of the Scientologists have evolved in many curious and highly publicized ways since 1952. A lively account by a not wholly unsympathetic outsider can be found in Cults of Unreason (1973) by Dr Christopher Evans (1931-1979), but there have been several more critical studies since then, both of the movement and of its founder, notably L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (1987) by Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard Jr a.k.a. Ronald DeWolf, and Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (1987) by Russell Miller, both the subject of legal action by the various corporate groups associated with the Church of Scientology.Scientology, originally a form of psychotherapy with many PSEUDO-SCIENCE overtones, became what has been described as the first sf RELIGION, when the Founding Church of Scientology was incorporated in Washington DC in July 1955. Sceptical commentators saw this as no more than a crafty tax dodge, but in fact Scientology had from the beginning many of the qualities of a genuine religion, and certainly aroused a religious fervour among its adherents. (In 1992 it was announced that an arm of the Church of Scientology, the Church of Spiritual Technology, was building an underground crypt to house "the religious works of L. Ron Hubbard and other key religious works of mankind".)Hubbard extended Scientology overseas quite early, opening centres in Australia and South Africa in 1953, and himself moving to the UK in 1955. A bad setback was the result of the Board of Inquiry set up in the state of Victoria, Australia, in 1963; the melodramatic Anderson report of 1965, having examined 151 witnesses, concluded that "Scientology is evil; its techniques are evil; its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its adherents sadly deluded and often mentally ill", and Scientology was banned in Victoria. A later disaster was the deportation of L. Ron Hubbard from the UK as an undesirable alien in 1968. Scientology was then directed from the ships of Hubbard's fleet, usually found in the Mediterranean, until in 1975 Hubbard returned to the USA. In 1978 he was found guilty in Paris of obtaining money under false pretences through Scientology, and sentenced in absentia to 4 years' imprisonment.Scientology and Hubbard had lost some ground, but the movement continued to attract members, and Hubbard himself was the subject of an enormous publicity boost when the Scientology publishers, Bridge Publications, reissued in 1984 Hubbard's novel Battlefield Earth (1982), originally published by a mainstream publisher, St Martin's Press, and followed it with an sf "dekalogy", the 10-vol Mission Earth saga by Hubbard (1983-7; later vols posthumous); these were heavily and expensively promoted. Around this time Hubbard had also founded and sponsored the WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST, good entrants to which were published in the L. RON HUBBARD PRESENTS WRITERS OF THE FUTURE series of original anthologies, #1 being in 1985. All of this did something to re-establish Hubbard (who had been discredited in the eyes of some observers) as an important figure in the sf community, and something of a philanthropist, though his own writings, and the literary contests and workshops, became controversial themselves; the sf community is deeply divided as to the merit of the latter, and Hubbard's own sf books of the 1980s are seldom highly regarded.Hubbard's role remains enigmatic; some saw him as a cynic, the founder of an organization calculated to bring in an income of many millions of dollars, which it did. This is almost certainly too simplistic a view, though the opposing view - that he was a man of genuine if eccentric vision, totally convinced of the truth of his case, and fighting valiantly against the powerful conspiracy of orthodox psychiatry - may also be less than the full story.Scientology is the most dramatic example of the precepts of pulp sf being put into practice in the real world. One regular attraction of pulp sf, as witness Hubbard's own stories and those of his one-time colleague A.E. VAN VOGT, was its dramatization of the idea that inside us there may be a SUPERMAN struggling to get out. The glowing promise held out by scientologists is that this dream can be realized. [PN] SCI FI Pronounced "sky fi" or "si fi", an abbreviation for "science fiction", introduced by Forrest J ACKERMAN, a prominent fan fond of wordplay, in 1954, when the term "hi-fi" was becoming popular. Seldom much used within the sf community, the term became very popular with journalists and media people generally, until by the 1970s it was the most common abbreviation used by nonreaders of sf to refer to the genre, sometimes with an implied sneer. Some critics within the genre, Terry CARR and Damon KNIGHT among them, decided that, since the term was commonly derogatory, it might be critically useful in distinguishing sf hack-work - particularly ill written, lurid adventure stories - from sf of a more intellectually demanding kind. Around 1978 the critic Susan WOOD and others began pronouncing the term "skiffy". In 1980s-90s usage "skiffy", which sounds friendlier than "sci fi", has perhaps for that reason come to be less condemnatory. Skiffy is colourful, sometimes entertaining, junk sf: STAR WARS is skiffy. [PN] SCION PUBLICATIONS VARGO STATTEN SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE. SCITHERS, GEORGE H(ARRY) (1929- ) US writer, editor, publisher and military engineer (with the US Army 1946-73). He began publishing fiction of genre interest with "Faithful Messenger" for If in 1969, and wrote a spoof cookery book (suggested by Damon KNIGHT's famous 1950 story), To Serve Man (1976) as Karl Wurf; but his main sf activities have been as an editor and publisher. He began his active involvement in 1959 with sf and fantasy as editor of the famous FANZINE Amra; Amra, still appearing on an irregular basis, specializes in SWORD AND SORCERY, particularly the work of Robert E. HOWARD; it won HUGOS in 1964 and 1968. GHS published 2 anthologies drawn from it: The Conan Swordbook (anth 1969) and The Conan Grimoire (anth 1972), both with L. Sprague DE CAMP, cofounder with him of the Hyborean Legion, a group devoted to Howard studies; earlier, De Camp alone had been responsible for the Amra-derived The Conan Reader (anth 1968). In 1973 GHS founded the Owlswick Press ( SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS), which continues successfully to publish sf and other material.GHS became the founding editor of ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE in 1977; it was the first sf magazine since the beginning of the 1950s to establish itself as a dominant force; he continued as editor until the beginning of 1982, also editing several anthologies drawn from it (see listing below) and winning Hugos for Best Professional Editor in 1979 and 1980. He then edited the troubled AMAZING STORIES from late 1982 until 1986; more recently, with John BETANCOURT (until 1990) and Darrell SCHWEITZER, who had been assistant editor of both IASFM and AMZ during GHS's tenures, he restarted WEIRD TALES, which had been variously (but unfruitfully) revived more than once since ceasing regular publication in 1954; the new series (the numbering is continuous over all incarnations) began with #290 in 1987, and continues, with all but the most recent edited by all three (each taking the lead role in turn); #300 was ed Schweitzer alone. Also with Schweitzer, GHS ed 2 anthologies of CLUB STORIES: Tales from the Spaceport Bar (anth 1987) and Another Round at the Spaceport Bar (anth 1989). In all his projects, which are very various, GHS has managed to combine energy-efficient verve with a transparent love of fantasy and sf. [JC]Other works: On Writing Science Fiction (The Editors Strike Back!) (1981) with John M. FORD and Schweitzer; Constructing Scientifiction & Fantasy (1982) with John Ashmead and Schweitzer.As Editor: Astronauts and Androids (anth 1977); Black Holes and Bug Eyed Monsters (anth 1977); Masters of Science Fiction (anth 1978); Comets and Computers (anth 1978); Dark Stars and Dragons (anth 1978); Marvels of Science Fiction, Vol 2 (anth 1979); Science Fiction Anthology, #3 (anth 1979), #4 (anth 1980) and #5 (anth 1981), anthologies from IASFM; Near Futures and Far (anth 1981). SCOOPS UK BEDSHEET-size magazine, 20 issues 10 Feb-23 June 1934, published by C. A. Pearson Ltd, London; ed Haydn Dimmock. S was intended as a weekly BOYS' PAPER that would "transport its readers from the everyday happenings into the future"; whatever appeal it might have had for adults was not helped by the decision to use, mostly, writers of ordinary boys' adventure fiction - Dimmock was also editor of The Scout. There was not much material by real sf writers, exceptions being A.M. LOW, with the serial "Space" (1934; vt Adrift in the Stratosphere 1937), a reprint serialization of The Poison Belt (1913) by Sir Arthur Conan DOYLE, and stories by Maurice Hugi and John Russell FEARN. Another serial was "The Black Vultures" by George E. Rochester (c1895-c1985). All issues are now collector's items. S was the first UK sf magazine, and not a very good one. 5 tales from it, along with 8 new stories, were later assembled as The Boys' World of Adventure (anth 1937) ed anon. [FHP/PN] SCORPION, THE US PULP MAGAZINE. 1 issue, Apr 1939, published by Popular Publications; ed Rogers Terrill. TS was in every respect a sequel to The OCTOPUS ; only the alias of the villainous protagonist being changed. The sadistic, borderline-sf feature novel, "Satan's Incubator" by Randolph Craig (Norvell W. PAGE), was reprinted by Robert E. WEINBERG as Pulp Classics #12: The Scorpion (1976 chap). [MJE/FHP] SCORTIA, THOMAS N(ICHOLAS) (1926-1986) US writer and chemist, active in solid-propellant research in the aerospace industry during the 1960s before becoming a full-time writer in 1970. He had already been publishing craftsmanlike stories for some time, beginning with "The Prodigy" for Science Fiction Adventures in 1954. He assembled some of his better work in Caution! Inflammable! (coll 1975); a more definitive conspectus is The Best of Thomas N. Scortia (coll 1981) ed George ZEBROWSKI. It has been argued that TNS was at his best in short forms, where his sustained interestingness as a producer of ideas and situations took sometimes bravura shape; and there is little doubt that his first novel, What Mad Oracle?: A Novel of the World as It Is (1961), concerning the aerospace industry, lumbered through its material without much verve. After 1970, however, as his production started to increase, TNS began to seem destined for a very substantial career. Artery of Fire (1960 Original Science Fiction Stories; exp 1972), about the construction of a huge power network, and Earthwreck! (1974), set in space after a nuclear HOLOCAUST has extinguished the human species on its home planet, were both intriguing tales, scientifically numerate and competently commercial.He then shifted, however, into collaborative enterprises, mainly a series of popular TECHNOTHRILLERS with Frank M. ROBINSON; though successful in their own terms, these exhibited little of the creative daring TNS had always threatened to exploit more fully. They are The Glass Inferno (1974) - which along with Richard Martin Stern's The Tower (1973) was filmed as The Towering Inferno (1974) - The Prometheus Crisis (1975), The Nightmare Factor (1978), The Gold Crew (1980) and - completed by Robinson after TNS died - Blow Out! (1987). TNS's death was reported as being from leukemia induced by exposure to radiation as an observer at early nuclear tests, and came just after he had announced new solo projects. [JC]As Editor: Strange Bedfellows: Sex and Science Fiction (anth 1972); Two Views of Wonder (anth 1973) with Chelsea Quinn YARBRO; Human-Machines (anth 1975) with Zebrowski.See also: CYBORGS; IMMORTALITY; SEX; SPACESHIPS. SCOT, MICHAEL Michael Scott ROHAN; Allan SCOTT. SCOTT, ALAN (1947- ) UK writer whose sf novel, Project Dracula (1971; vt Anthrax Mutation 1976 US), depicts an explosion in a space station which sprays anthrax spores in dangerous directions. [JC] SCOTT, ALLAN (JAMES JULIUS) (1952- ) UK writer of fantasy novels, the first being The Ice King (1986; vt Burial Rites 1987 US) with Michael Scott ROHAN, both writing as Michael Scot; a second collaboration with Rohan, A Spell of Empire: The Horns of Tartarus (1992), was published under their real names. Solo, AS has written a further fantasy, The Dragon in the Stone (1991). [JC] SCOTT, G. FIRTH [r] AUSTRALIA. SCOTT, JEREMY Kay DICK. SCOTT, J.M. [r] Robert THEOBALD. SCOTT, JODY (HUGUELET WOOD) (1923- ) UK-born US writer whose 2 sf novels, Passing for Human (1977) and I, Vampire (1984), comprise a joyously and at times scatologically tangled SATIRE of the post-industrial Western world from a FEMINIST point of view that wittily verges on misandry. The 2nd vol-whose protagonist, the female vampire Sterling O'Blivion, is only intermittently relevant to the action - ends in a state of violent confusion after a love affair between O'Blivion and an ALIEN who closely resembles Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), though a central message does remain: an arraignment of exploitation (or vampirism), whether on the part of slave-trading aliens, Earth-bound capitalists, men or women. [JC]See also: SUPERNATURAL CREATURES. SCOTT, MELISSA (1960- ) US writer who began publishing sf with her first novel, The Game Beyond (1984), a SPACE OPERA of some resonance which uses analogies with the Roman Empire - familiar since the early Foundation stories (1951-3) of Isaac ASIMOV-with considerable skill. In 1986 she won the JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD for Best New Writer, at least in part for Five-Twelths of Heaven (1986), #1 in her Silence Leigh sequence, which continues with Silence in Solitude (1986) and The Empress of Earth (1987), all 3 assembled as The Roads of Heaven (omni 1988). As with her first novel, these adventures of aspiring space-pilot Silence Leigh capably marshal echoes of Earth-in this case alchemy and astrological symbols - to enrich space-opera routines, including several close calls with various enemies, a patch of slavery and an ongoing quarrel with an inimical Empire. The main weakness lies in MS's attempts to impose FEMINIST arguments upon a traditionally conceived venue without seeming to think their implications through in that context; the main strengths, perhaps, lie in the power of the main characters' longing to find old Earth and in the ironies attendant upon their eventual success. The Kindly Ones (1987), whose title and plot evoke Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy (458BC), specifically its third play, Eumenides, in an interstellar setting, competently depicts a cruelly rigid society in a Solar System of some interest. Dreamships (1992) sets an AI on a FASTER-THAN-LIGHT ship, and very competently examines the nature of a sentience slaved to travel the stars and, in the sequel, Burning Bright (1993), to undergo taxing experience on an alien planet. Trouble and her Friends (1994), though it breaks no new ground, does very competently traverse CYBERPUNK territory, and the eponymous Trouble is an attractive protagonist. [JC]Other works: A Choice of Destinies (1986); The Armor of Light (1988) with Lisa A. Barnett; Mighty Good Road (1990). SCOTT, PEG O'NEILL and PETER T. [r] Barton WERPER. SCOTT, RIDLEY (1939- ) UK film-maker who has worked mostly in the USA. After making a name with a series of stylish, inventive tv commercials, RS made his feature debut with The Duellists (1977), a period film adapted from a story by Joseph CONRAD. He then went on to direct 2 of the most influential and important sf films of the last 15 years: ALIEN (1979) and BLADE RUNNER (1982), the latter an adaption of Philip K. DICK's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). RS is a visionary, at least in terms of production design, and both his sf films conjure up a detailed and utterly convincing future (whose style RS later recycled in tv advertisements for a bank); Blade Runner is particularly powerful in its design, and proved an influence on the CYBERPUNK movement. However, after these films RS vanished into the (comparatively well publicized) limbo of Legend (1985), a fairy tale resembling a feature-length advertisement for hairspray. He made a tentative commercial comeback with Someone to Watch Over Me (1987) and Black Rain (1989), both policiers whose content was more conventional than their style. RS's films are mostly underconceived on a script and character level, and thus can appear cold. He had a big, if controversial, success, however, with the effective and satisfying Thelma and Louise (1991), a female road movie about two women escaping routine and put-upon lives and revenging themselves against various forms of sexism; it and the 2 sf films are RS's best work.RS's brother Tony Scott has directed one borderline-sf film about vampires - The Hunger (1983) - whose exotic visual qualities fail to eclipse its narrative failings, rather as in RS's own lesser films. [KN/PN]See also: CINEMA; HORROR IN SF; MONSTER MOVIES. SCIENCE FANTASY YEARBOOK One of the many reprint DIGEST-size magazines from Sol Cohen's Ultimate Publishing Co., using stories from old issues of AMZ and Fantastic Adventures, including Theodore STURGEON's The Dreaming Jewels (1950 Fantastic Adventures; exp 1950; vt The Synthetic Man 1957). 4 quarterly issues appeared, 2 in 1970, 2 in 1971, all but #1 as Science Fantasy. [BS/PN] SF Pronounced "esseff", the preferred abbreviation of "science fiction" within the community of sf writers and readers, as opposed to the journalistic SCI FI. In this volume - as often elsewhere - it is rendered in lower-case letters. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION US PULP MAGAZINE, 12 issues Mar 1939-Sep 1941. Published by Blue Ribbon Magazines Inc. (Mar-Dec 1939), Double Action Magazines Inc. (Mar 1940-Jan 1941) and then Columbia Publications Inc. (Mar-Sep 1941); ed Charles D. HORNIG (Mar 1939-Mar 1941) and Robert A.W. LOWNDES (June-Sep 1941).The second venture into magazine editing by former WONDER STORIES editor Hornig, SF was never better than very mediocre; although its covers were all by Frank R. PAUL, they were poor examples of his work. The stories were from such authors as John Russell FEARN and Eando BINDER, both of whom also used pseudonyms to multiply their contributions to the magazine. The readers' departments were conducted on a determinedly chummy basis by Hornig, who spent a good deal of space airing his enthusiasm for Esperanto. (In later issues his firm pacifism showed in some anguished editorials.) After 2 issues under Lowndes's editorship SF was merged with its companion FUTURE FICTION to form Future Combined with Science Fiction. The Apr and July 1943 issues of SCIENCE FICTION STORIES, which revived the SF cover design, were actually a continuation of Future Fiction after a further title change. Some commentators see The ORIGINAL SCIENCE FICTION STORIES , also ed Lowndes, as a delayed continuation of SF in the 1950s. 2 issues of SF, cut, were reprinted in the UK. [MJE/PN] SCIENCE FICTION ACHIEVEMENT AWARD HUGO. SCIENCE FICTION (ADVENTURE) CLASSICS SCIENCE FICTION CLASSICS. SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES Title used on 2 US DIGEST-size magazines during the 1950s, and on 1 UK magazine that began as a reprint and continued, using original material, after its parent - the 2nd US magazine - folded. (The title was used also as a variant title of SCIENCE FICTION CLASSICS, Jan-May 1973, Sep and Nov 1974.)The 1st US magazine published 9 issues Nov 1952-June 1954. #1 was published by Science Fiction Publications, the rest by Future Publications. The issues Nov 1952-Sep 1953 were ed Lester DEL REY as Philip St John; Harry HARRISON took over shortly before the magazine folded. The schedule was irregularly bimonthly.The 2nd US magazine, published by Royal Publications, was ed Larry T. SHAW and ran for 12 issues in 18 months, Dec 1956-June 1958. #1 was numbered, confusingly, vol 1 #6, continuing the numeration of a defunct magazine (Suspect Detective Stories) from the same publisher; however, #2 was numbered vol 1 #2.The editorial policy in each case - more overt in Shaw's magazine - was to concentrate on adventure stories. The 1st SFA serialized del Rey's Police Your Planet (Mar-Sep 1953; 1956), as by Erik Van Lhin, and C.M. KORNBLUTH's The Syndic (Dec 1953-June 1954; 1953). The 2nd SFA used very few short stories, usually featuring 3 long novelettes per issue. Robert SILVERBERG, under various names, was a particularly prolific contributor, magazine versions of 6 of his early novels appearing there.Novelettes from Shaw's magazine were resorted into 5 issues of a UK edition marketed Mar-Nov 1958 by Nova Publications, with both Shaw and John CARNELL credited as editors. Carnell alone, no longer using material from the parent magazine, continued SFA for a further 27 issues until May 1963, using a great deal of material by Kenneth BULMER (under various names) and novelettes by other writers regularly featured in the companion magazines NEW WORLDS and SCIENCE FANTASY. Notable stories included John BRUNNER's Society of Time series (1962; fixup as Times without Number 1962; rev 1974) and the magazine version of J.G. BALLARD's The Drowned World (Jan 1962; rev 1962). The UK SFA was numbered consecutively #1-#32, approximately bimonthly to #14, and regularly bimonthly from then on. Though sometimes regarded as more juvenile than its two companion publications, it remained continuously enjoyable. [BS] SCIENCE FICTION ADVERTISER RIVERSIDE QUARTERLY. SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY BOOK REVIEW US critical magazine, founded and ed Neil BARRON, published by BORGO PRESS, 13 issues 1979-80; revived with the SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION as publisher, still ed Barron, 20 issues 1982-3; amalgamated with Fantasy Newsletter to form FANTASY REVIEW, Jan 1984, ed Robert A. Collins, with Barron as reviews editor. This useful journal often reviewed as many as 50 books an issue - novels, collections, secondary and associational literature - and with so many reviewers involved was a triumph of editorial organization. Its passing is regretted, especially since SFRA NEWSLETTER, which since the late 1980s has been doing something similar, usually prints rather shorter reviews (especially since mid-1992) than did SF&FBR, and its standards seem a little more uneven. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY BOOK REVIEW ANNUAL Beginning with Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Review Annual 1988 (dated 1988 but 1989) ed Robert A. Collins and Robert Latham - whose coverage is of 1987 - this series is an annual book spin-off from the defunct magazine FANTASY REVIEW (folded Aug 1987). The book-review section of the magazine had been its strongest feature, and continues as the central feature of the annual, whose first edition published around 550 brief reviews (most reprinted, though individual reviews are not so acknowledged, from SFRA NEWSLETTER) along with essay surveys of the year in sf, sf scholarship, horror, etc. SFAFBRA's utility is dubious, since by the time its information is published many of the books described are out of print. SFAFBRA, published by Meckler for 2 years then by GREENWOOD PRESS, had (1989), (1990) and (1991) editions up to the end of 1994. [PN] SFFWA SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA. SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS OF AMERICA SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA. SCIENCE FICTION: A REVIEW OF SPECULATIVE LITERATURE Australian critical magazine ed Van Ikin from University of Sydney and later University of Western Australia; associate ed Terry DOWLING; irregular; PULP-MAGAZINE format, 35 issues 1977-1993, presumably current. Intended to be a reputable academic journal, as the editorial addresses suggest, SF:AROSL has oscillated a little uneasily between the academic and the fannish, but has nevertheless published good critical features. Until the more regular and perhaps livelier AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: SECOND SERIES appeared in 1986, this was the main repository for Australian sf criticism (especially since its main rival, SF COMMENTARY, was notably irregular in the 1980s), publishing interesting material by its editors and by Russell BLACKFORD, George TURNER and others. The very irregular publication means letters and reviews often seem out of date even as they appear. [PN] SFBC AWARD AWARDS. SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB Sf book clubs were started in both the UK and the USA at roughly the same time (c1953). The UK version was owned in its early years by Sidgwick & Jackson, then by Dent as part of that company's Readers' Union group of book clubs, and finally by David & Charles, who bought the Readers' Union group in the 1970s. David & Charles's management, which contained no sf enthusiasts, was apathetic towards the SFBC, which later became subject to competition from Encounters, a book club aggressively promoted by the larger group Book Club Associates. Even before the death in 1982 of its freelance consultant Edmund COOPER, the editorless UK SFBC was slowly petering out, despite part- and spare-time efforts by one Readers' Union employee, Paul G. Begg, to keep it alive; it died altogether some time after Begg left the company.The US SFBC, by contrast, has had a history of continuity. It is published by Nelson Doubleday, Inc., an associate of, but distinct from, DOUBLEDAY, whose differing imprint is Doubleday & Company, Inc. In 1986 the US SFBC was sold, along with Doubleday, to the German company Bertelsmann. The US club is far larger than the UK club ever was, offers a very much broader selection, publishes its own editions (including special hardcover editions of paperback originals) and creates books - omnibuses of various sorts - especially for its members. (The UK club normally presented no more than one title per month, reprinted cheaply on cheap paper and with a cheap binding and cover.) The US SFBC has been a major force in sf publishing. [MJE/PN/JGr] SFCD-LITERATURPREIS AWARDS. SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE US SEMIPROZINE published and ed from New York by Andrew PORTER, monthly, current, 180 issues to Feb 1995. SFC was founded in 1978 as a department of Porter's more elaborate but now defunct magazine ALGOL, and became a separate publication in Oct 1979. It is a general news magazine about sf, whose coverage is not as broad as that of its competitor, the West Coast magazine LOCUS, though it contains fan material, a film column by Ed NAHA (until Sep 1990) and the "London Report" by Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher, all of which cover ground rather different from Locus's. The film column is disappointingly fragmentary and the book reviews, by Don D'Ammassa, are very short. Something of an East Coast institution, SFC does offer an alternate voice for the sf community. In its one-man-band editorial performance it shows astonishing stamina in its producer, Porter, who received a Special Award at the World CONVENTION in 1991 for his "years of continuing excellence" in editing SFC, in the pages of which he subsequently apologized for his less than graceful acceptance of the award, which he regarded as "a consolation prize". No such response was necessary in 1993 and 1994, for SFC did indeed win the HUGO award in the semiprozine category in both those years, bringing to an end Locus's astonishing run of nine years' domination of the award ever since that category was first established. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION CLASSICS One of the many reprint DIGEST-size magazines published by Sol Cohen's Ultimate Publishing Co., 30 issues published, ed Herb Lehrman as Ralph Adris #1-#5, then ed Cohen. It began Feb 1967, published #1-#6 in 1967-8 as Science Fiction Classics and #7-#8 in 1969 as Science Fiction (Adventure) Classics. It resumed publication in Winter 1970 under the latter title with #12 and published 22 more issues before merging with Thrilling Science Fiction ( The MOST THRILLING SCIENCE FICTION EVER TOLD ) in early 1975. SFC was numbered consecutively up to #19, and thereafter merely dated. The schedule was irregular. The hiatus in numbering (#9-#11 missing) is connected with the fact that 2 other magazines took up their numbering from SFC in 1969: SPACE ADVENTURES (CLASSICS) published 6 issues numbered #9-#14, and STRANGE FANTASY published 6 issues numbered #8-#13; they folded in 1971 and 1970 respectively.In its early issues SFC used a great deal of material from the 1930s AMZ, reprinting stories by John W. CAMPBELL Jr, Hugo GERNSBACK, Edmond HAMILTON et al., but from #13 it reprinted mainly poor stories from the period of Raymond A. PALMER's editorship. Variant titles were Science Fiction Adventures Classics (July 1973-July 1974) and Science Fiction Adventures (Jan-May 1973, Sep and Nov 1974). [BS] SCIENCE FICTION CLASSICS ANNUAL US DIGEST-size magazine. 1 issue, dated 1970, published by Ultimate Publishing Co.; probably ed Sol Cohen. All stories were reprinted from the 1930s AMZ. [FHP] SCIENCE-FICTION COLLECTOR, THE Canadian bibliographical SEMIPROZINE (1976-81), describing itself as a FANZINE, published by James Grant Books, Calgary, to #3, then by Pandora's Books Ltd; ed J. Grant Thiessen (1946- ). With #9 (June 1980) the journal merged with the fanzine Age of the Unicorn, and was renamed Megavore: The Journal of Popular Fiction.Thiessen, a book dealer with a bibliographical bent, published in TS-FC a good deal of extremely useful research - which quite often cannot be found duplicated elsewhere - on sf PUBLISHING, frequently in the more obscure and less reputable areas of paperback-book and magazine publishing, with features on ACE BOOKS, sf pornography, defunct paperback lines, Avalon Books, A.E. VAN VOGT and much else. After the title-change the emphasis was less strongly on sf/fantasy; within a year the journal died. [PN] SF COMMENTARY Australian FANZINE, irregular (Jan 1969-current), ed Bruce GILLESPIE. SFC, which had reached #73/74/75 by Oct 1993, is a serious critical journal in stencilled format (until issue #69/70, Jan 1991, since when it has been lithographed); it also includes rather charming autobiographical ramblings by Gillespie. It is generally considered one of the best serious fanzines, and has received 3 HUGO nominations. Important contributors have included John Foyster, Yvonne Rousseau, George TURNER and Stanislaw LEM; most of the earliest English translations of Lem's critical articles appeared in SFC. During June 1981-Jan 1989 SFC did not appear, Gillespie instead publishing his The Metaphysical Review, which is less concentratedly about sf, and which had reached #19/20/21 by July 1994. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION DIGEST 1. US DIGEST-size magazine. 2 issues, Feb and May 1954, published by Specific Fiction Corp., New York, ed Chester Whitehorn. SFD was intended as a reprint magazine which would take its material from the slick general-fiction magazines and other sources, but the selections were weak and it quickly failed. Its (purportedly) nonfiction articles had a strong occult bent. The same publisher and editor had already failed with VORTEX SCIENCE FICTION the previous year.2. US DIGEST-sized magazine. 4 issues Oct/Nov 1981-Sep/Oct 1982, ed Shawna MCCARTHY, published by Davis Publications, New York, as a companion magazine to ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE and ASF. This was an experiment in presenting excerpts from forthcoming books, both fiction and nonfiction, in the form of self-sufficient episodes. #4 was a 288pp double issue.3. FANZINE founded in 1932, better known under the title to which it changed its name in 1934, FANTASY MAGAZINE (which see for details).None of these magazines should be confused with the UK SF DIGEST. [FHP/PN] SF DIGEST UK small- BEDSHEET-size magazine. 1 undated issue, 1976, published by New English Library; ed Julie Davis. SFD was to have been a quarterly successor to SCIENCE FICTION MONTHLY, but was doomed even before #1 appeared by the publisher's decision to concentrate on books rather than magazines. SFD's format was superior to that of Science Fiction Monthly, and was less obviously slanted toward a juvenile market. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION EYE US SEMIPROZINE, #1 Winter 1987; ed Stephen P. Brown, Daniel Steffan, and published by the 'Til You Go Blind Cooperative to #5; ed and published Brown alone from #6; published from Washington DC to #8, thereafter from Asheville, North Carolina; thirteen issues to Spring 1994, theoretically 3 issues a year (actually highly irregular), maybe current.This intensely lively critical journal, professional in appearance, has at times been regarded as the house journal of CYBERPUNK; it prints its price in US dollars, pounds sterling and Japanese yen on the cover. It covers literature (mostly but not exclusively sf), music, technology, communications, or whatever is hot on the streets at a given moment, with an agreeable if irritating air of seeing itself as living on the cutting edge. Its various controversies have included a continuing savage attack on Orson Scott CARD. Contributors have included Paul Di Filippo, William GIBSON, Richard GRANT, Eileen Gunn, Elizabeth HAND, Richard KADREY, John KESSEL, Charles PLATT, Lucius SHEPARD and Bruce STERLING. As time went by in the 1990s, and the frequency of publication went down to around once a year, the editor's riding the surf of the future was compromised by the likelihood he would slop off the back of the wave. But the magazine remained very readable. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION FIVE YEARLY QUANDRY. SCIENCE FICTION FORTNIGHTLY AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION. SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION UK research unit set up in 1971 at the North East London Polytechnic (which became the University of East London in 1992), but semi-autonomous, being controlled by a council, partly academics and partly sf professionals, and including George HAY, whose enthusiasm had much to do with the SFF's inception. Peter NICHOLLS, the first administrator (1971-7), was followed by Malcolm EDWARDS (1978-80). The SFF was the first and only academic body in the UK set up to investigate sf: until 1980 it also supervised graduate research work in the field and investigated the usefulness of sf in education generally ( SF IN THE CLASSROOM).Severe restrictions on UK educational budgets in 1980 led to the freezing of the position of administrator when Edwards left in May of that year, though Colin GREENLAND, as an Arts-Council-funded Writing Fellow attached to the SFF, kept the flag flying for a period, and Charles BARREN served as (unsalaried) acting administrator for some years, followed by Ian MacPherson and Ted Chapman, variously designated but never paid. During 1980-91 the SFF was staffed only by a single part-time employee, Joyce Day, becoming primarily known for its journal, FOUNDATION: THE REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION, and its research library, housed at the Barking precinct of the Polytechnic, the largest publicly accessible COLLECTION of sf in the UK outside the British Library, with c20,000 items including magazines and fanzines. In 1991 it seemed briefly that the Polytechnic - then about to be granted, as were other UK polytechnics, the more prestigious designation "University" - was prepared to refinance the SFF, and an additional clerical staff member was introduced, though not one either versed in sf or with a teaching brief. But the now "University" soon declared itself unwilling to sustain the collection, to house the academic journal, or to appoint an academic lecturer to the essential post of Administrator; the "University" additionally proposed to evict the SFF on a short notice unless the SFF agreed to pay it ps40,000 per annum - though no Administrator would be appointed, nor any courses permitted, nor any accessions budget granted, if that sum were in fact advanced. In October 1992, the Council of the SFF therefore agreed in principle to move in early 1993 to the University of Liverpool, which had expressed much interest in the chance to gain so substantial (and unique) a research resource. The University of Liverpool selected Andy Sawyer as Administrator in 1993; an MA course in sf was announced; and the Collection was formally transferred into the University's keeping 26 January 1995, though ownership of SFF books remains with the Friends of Foundation, which was formed in the late 1980s specifically in order to help sustain the SFF through the difficult period which was, even then, anticipated.The SFF patrons are Arthur C. CLARKEand Ursula K. LE GUIN; council and ordinary members have included practically all UK sf writers as well as distinguished US writers including James BLISH. The SFF helps administer the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD. [PN/JC] SCIENCE FICTION GREATS GREAT SCIENCE FICTION. SF GREATS GREAT SCIENCE FICTION. SF IMPULSE SCIENCE FANTASY. SF IN MUSIC MUSIC. SF IN THE CLASSROOM In September 1953 Sam MOSKOWITZ began to teach what was almost certainly the first sf course in the USA to be given through a college. The course was on Science Fiction Writing, was delivered on a non-credit basis through the City College of New York, and was presented with the collaboration of a popular-science writer, Robert Frazier (not to be confused with the sf poet Robert FRAZIER). For the Autumn 1953 sessions, Moskowitz arranged for several sf writers - including Isaac ASIMOV, Lester DEL REY, Murray LEINSTER, Robert SHECKLEY and Theodore STURGEON - to give talks; later sessions included talks by Robert A. HEINLEIN and others. Moskowitz left the course after 1955, and it probably ceased in 1957.Further sf courses were slow to be established. Guest lectures were occasionally given, including 2 by Moskowitz, the first in December 1950 at New York University, the second in December 1953 at Columbia University. Those given by Heinlein, C.M. KORNBLUTH, Robert BLOCH and Alfred BESTER at the University of Chicago in 1957 were collected as The Science Fiction Novel (anth 1959) with an introduction by Basil DAVENPORT; those by Kingsley AMIS at Princeton in 1959 were published as New Maps of Hell (1960 US). A key year was 1961, when courses were set up by Mark R. HILLEGAS at Colgate and H. Bruce FRANKLIN at Stanford. 10 years later Jack WILLIAMSON's pamphlet Science Fiction Comes to College (1971 chap) listed 61 universities offering such courses, and he judged that to be a mere sampling; by the time of his later pamphlet, Teaching SF (1975 chap), that estimate had considerably increased, and it seems likely that today there are at least 250 such courses in the USA. A Research Guide to Science Fiction Studies (1977), compiled by Marshall B. TYMN, Roger C. SCHLOBIN and L.W. CURREY, lists 412 doctoral dissertations on sf subjects, the great majority having been submitted in the USA. Sf scholars have their own association, the SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION, whose membership in the early 1990s hovered just above 300, perhaps two-thirds being US-based teachers of sf. It is clear that there has also been a greatly increased use of sf material at high-school level, sf being studied not only in its own right but because it helps to dramatize issues of ECOLOGY, FUTUROLOGY, OVERPOPULATION, SOCIOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, etc. Also, as one of the most interesting and rapidly evolving forms of popular culture, sf is an important register of social history, reflecting shifts in the prejudices and expectations of society at large.The story is very different outside the USA. A scattering of universities in Canada, Europe and Australia have sf courses. The first sf course in the UK was a non-credit course begun by Philip STRICK in 1969 at the City Literary Institute, London; it had various leaders (including the editors of this encyclopedia: John CLUTE, Peter NICHOLLS and Brian M. STABLEFORD) before its demise in 1992. Brief academic sf courses were taught by Nicholls and Ian WATSON in the 1970s, and occasional sf texts still find their way on to more conventional courses in English, politics, etc., but sf courses at university level remain a rarity in the UK.Fears have been expressed that the academic study of sf will domesticate it. (A common catchphrase among sf fans was "Kick sf out of the classroom and back to the gutter where it belongs".) They are not groundless. Anecdotal evidence suggests that too often the sf course is regarded as a "soft option", and, although the number of distinguished scholars and teachers of sf, especially in the USA, has certainly increased through the 1970s and 1980s, the overall standard of academic sf criticism is not notably high. Also, the academic acceptance of sf may have suffered a setback through the popular perception, in the post- STAR WARS era, that sf books are largely juvenilia - a perception partly justified in a period when sf PUBLISHING, chiefly in the USA, appeared to have become cynically focused on a routine, mass-market product to the detriment of "mid-list" writers whose work was more serious, more carefully written and, it could be argued, more entertaining. Nonetheless, the number of CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF increased very dramatically during this period: during 1991 SFRA NEWSLETTER reviewed about 15 books a month on sf/fantasy. Also, many more academic essays on sf are being published; they are now likely to turn up in all sorts of nonspecialist literary and critical journals, not just the specialist journals, whose "Big Three" remain SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES and EXTRAPOLATION in the USA, and FOUNDATION: THE REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION in the UK; it is too soon to say with what success JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS (founded 1988) will join this group. These journals regularly publish a proportion of unexciting and mediocre work, as they always did, but there is currently a strong sense that more good and lively sf criticism and scholarship are abroad in the land now than when the 1st edn of this encyclopedia was prepared.Especially since the early 1970s, many books - far too many to be listed here - have been published for use by teachers of sf at high-school level. Some have unfortunately tended towards the patronizing and simplistic, or to the formulaic, as in too many (but not all) of the readers' guides to individual authors published by companies like BORGO PRESS, Cliffs Notes, GREENWOOD PRESS, STARMONT HOUSE, Twayne and Ungar. Among the useful classroom guides are: Science Fiction: An Introduction (1973; rev vt Science Fiction Reader's Guide 1974) by L. David Allen; Grokking the Future: Science Fiction in the Classroom (1973) by Bernard C. Hollister and Deane C. Thompson; Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching (1980) by Patrick PARRINDER; Critical Encounters: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction (anth 1978) ed Dick Riley; Science Fiction: A Teacher's Guide and Resource Book (1988) by Marshall B. Tymn; and Teaching Science Fiction: Education for Tomorrow (anth 1980) ed Jack Williamson.The standard of books aimed at university-level readers and graduates ranges bafflingly from the opaque and semiliterate to the stimulating and rigorous, and their sheer volume - as suggested under CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF - is now dizzying. Among the more important (English-language) academic authors to have written books in this field are Paul K. ALKON, Thomas D. CLARESON, I.F. CLARKE, Samuel R. DELANY (a part-time academic), H. Bruce FRANKLIN, James E. GUNN, Hal W. HALL, Mark R. HILLEGAS, David KETTERER, C.N. MANLOVE, Walter E. MEYERS, Patrick PARRINDER, Robert M. PHILMUS, Eric S. RABKIN, Mark ROSE, Joanna RUSS, David N. SAMUELSON, Lyman Tower SARGENT, Roger C. SCHLOBIN, Robert SCHOLES, George Edgar SLUSSER, Brian M. STABLEFORD, Darko SUVIN, W. Warren WAGAR, Patricia S. WARRICK and Gary K. WOLFE. Critical anthologies and journals contain - amid the dross - the work of other interesting sf academics who have yet to publish books. An early set of essays about the academic interest in sf is Science Fiction: The Academic Awakening (anth 1974) ed Willis E. MCNELLY.Sf BIBLIOGRAPHIES have become a marketable commodity only because of the academic interest in sf. The 1980s saw the publication of many more of them than ever before. Somewhere between bibliography, history and critical reference work is one of the outstanding reference works in the field, a book whose most recent incarnation is Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction: Third Edition (1987) ed Neil BARRON, aimed in the first instance at librarians but useful for all sf academics; it contains a chapter on the teaching of sf, with suggested texts.This interest has brought about the publication of many sf ANTHOLOGIES that are obviously designed for the classroom, the stories they contain being complemented by introductions or some kind of critical apparatus. Some notably thoughtful compilations are The Mirror of Infinity: A Critic's Anthology of Science Fiction (anth 1970) ed Robert SILVERBERG, Those who Can (anth 1973) ed Robin Scott WILSON, Modern Science Fiction (anth 1974) ed Norman SPINRAD, Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century (anth 1966; rev 1968; rev 1978) ed H. Bruce Franklin, and The Road to Science Fiction (anth in 4 vols 1977-82) ed James E. Gunn. There are also, of course, a great many theme anthologies collecting sf stories about everything from ANTHROPOLOGY to RELIGION. One of the most active theme anthologists for the academic market has been Martin Harry GREENBERG, along with several colleagues with whom he often works.Beyond all these direct responses to the academic stimulus is the now very general interest in sf to be found in the intellectual world generally: even newspapers and magazines are less dismissive or ignorant about sf than was the case in, say, the 1960s. Much of the material now published about sf - notably in the 1980s and 1990s in newspaper articles about CYBERPUNK - has been hacked out by trend-spotters and journalists cashing in on a good thing, but this is inevitable. Sceptics see the breaking down of the walls of sf's ghetto - a process hastened by sf's partial academic acceptance - as leading to such a general diffusion of sf ideas into the community at large as to leave sf itself less identifiable as a genre, perhaps less relevant, and even, according to the pessimists, moribund. If so, we have the paradox of a genre so disreputable in life that decent persons turned aside from it in disgust, only for its corpse to be praised for its beauty and vigour. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION LEAGUE Launched Apr 1934 by Charles D. HORNIG and Hugo GERNSBACK through WONDER STORIES, the SFL was the first and most successful of several professionally sponsored sf organizations. The formation of local chapters in the USA, Australia, and the UK brought sf readers together and provided a firm foundation for present-day sf FANDOM; in particular, the establishment of the Leeds and Nuneaton SFL chapters led directly to the first UK FANZINES. [PR] SCIENCE FICTION LIBRARY UK pocketbook magazine. 3 numbered undated issues 1960; published by G.G. Swan, London; no ed named. SFL had no table of contents, poor paper and very small type. Original and reprinted stories were used, including some from the first incarnation of SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY. A companion magazine was WEIRD AND OCCULT LIBRARY. [FHP] SCOTT, ROBIN [s] Robin Scott WILSON. SCOTT, WARWICK Elleston TREVOR. SCRAP BOOK, THE US PULP MAGAZINE published monthly Mar 1906-Jan 1912 by the Frank A. MUNSEY Corp.; ed Perley Poore Sheehan. TSB was published in 2 separate sections from July 1907, the first containing articles, the second fiction. The second section became The CAVALIER from Sep 1908, the first continuing as SB, with some fiction content, until merging with The Cavalier to form The Cavalier Weekly.SB began as a reprint magazine, often featuring classic weird fiction. Later it published original stories, including some sf, notably Julian Johnson's "When Science Warred" (1907), George Allan ENGLAND's "The House of Transformation" (Sep-Nov 1909) and Garrett P. SERVISS's "The Sky Pirate" (Apr-Sep 1909). [JE] SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN Film (1969). Amicus/AIP. Dir Gordon Hessler, starring Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Alfred Marks, Michael Gothard. Screenplay Christopher Wicking, based on The Disorientated Man (1966; vt Scream and Scream Again 1967 US) by Peter SAXON. 94 mins. Colour.This blend of policier, cold-war political thriller, FRANKENSTEIN and vampire movie, initially ignored, was later seen by some cineastes as one of the major UK sf films. An enjoyable farrago, it does have moments of distinction, but its silliness gets in the way: the opening sequence - a hospital patient is understandably upset to find that each day he is missing yet another limb - could be a sketch from the Monty Python tv series. Nowhere is it explained why mad SCIENTISTS (the main one played by Price) need to construct a super-race (which they do using stolen body parts), why the constructed beings are so incredibly strong, why they suck blood and murder people, and why this makes them good prime-ministerial material. Marks's energetically down-to-earth performance as the baffled police inspector almost saves the film, but SASA works only as a (literally) disjointed series of paranoid surreal nightmares - and, even then, poor production values and mostly indifferent performances are as likely to elicit laughter as horror. The radical subtext - our political masters are literally MONSTERS - had been better done elsewhere; e.g., QUATERMASS II (1957; vt Enemy from Space). [PN] SCREAMERS L' ISOLA DEGLI UOMINI PESCE. SCRYMSOUR, ELLA M. (1888-? ) UK writer whose remarkable The Perfect World: A Romance of Strange People and Strange Places (fixup 1922) is thought by E.F. BLEILER almost certainly to consist of 2 separate magazine novels here published sequentially; however, as EMS clearly attempted to weave their plots together, we designate the outcome a FIXUP. In the first main sequence the two young gentlemen protagonists are transported from a company town dominated by their family coalmine into an underground cave system populated by theocratic relics of an Old Testament quarrel; after they finally emerge in Australia and note that the world is about to blow up, they travel with their inventor uncle to JUPITER, where a similar oligarchy, this time pre-Adamic, subjects the main protagonist - as had happened already underground - to erotic inducements. He marries the relevant princess and together they rule Jupiter in peace. In dealing with the sinlessness of the Jovians, EMS ineffectively prefigured the work of C.S. LEWIS. [JC] SEA UNDER THE SEA. SEABORN, ADAM Unidentified pseudonym of the author of the well written Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery (1820), which sets a UTOPIA inside a HOLLOW EARTH. Some commentators have assumed AS to have been Captain John Cleves SYMMES, whose hollow-earth theories are exploited in the book. However, they are also satirized, so a more likely candidate may be Nathaniel Ames (? -1835), whose style in his books about the sea resembles AS's. [JC/PN]About the author: "The Authorship of Symzonia: The Case for Nathaniel Ames" by Hans-Joachim Lang and Benjamin Lease in New England Quarterly (June 1975).See also: FANTASTIC VOYAGES; HISTORY OF SF. SEABRIGHT, IDRIS [s] Margaret ST CLAIR. SEAFORTH A pseudonym used by 2 entirely separate authors.1. As A. Nelson Seaforth, UK author George Sydenham Clarke (1848-1933), 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe, wrote the future- WAR novel, The Last Great Naval War (1891), in which France and the UK become involved.2. George C. FOSTER. [JC] SEA-LION Pseudonym of UK naval officer and writer Geoffrey Martin Bennett (1909-1983), whose two sf novels both deal with menaces at sea: The Invisible Ships (1950) indeed features invisible ships, and This Creeping Evil (1950) features sea monsters. [JC] SEAMARK Austin J. SMALL. SEARLES, A(RTHUR) LANGLEY (1920- ) US FANZINE publisher and Professor of Chemistry at the College of Mount St Vincent, New York (he retired in 1987); as publisher from 1943 of FANTASY COMMENTATOR (which see for details), he has maintained the journal as a significant forum for the study of sf in many of its aspects, though concentrating on early GENRE SF. [JC] SEARLES, (WILLIAM) BAIRD (1934-1993) US writer known mainly for his several nonfiction works on sf and fantasy, beginning with Stranger in a Strange Land & Other Works (1975 chap) and continuing with The Science Fiction Quizbook (1976) with Martin Last,(1929- ) A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction (1979) with Last, Michael Franklin and Beth MEACHAM, A Reader's Guide to Fantasy (1982) with Franklin and Meacham, and Films of Science Fiction and Fantasy (1988). With Brian Thomsen he edited Halflings, Hobbits, Warrows & Weefolk: A Collection of Tales of Heroes Short in Stature (anth 1991). He is a useful figure in the field as a practical critic and guide. [JC]See also: ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE. SEARLS, HANK Working name of US writer Henry Hunt Searls Jr (1922- ), who began publishing sf with "Martyr's Flight" for Imagination in 1955, and whose sf has been primarily restricted to NEAR-FUTURE tales of the early space age. In his first novel, The Big X (1959), a test pilot flies a plane designed to reach Mach 8. HS's best-known tale, The Pilgrim Project (1964) - filmed as COUNTDOWN (1968) - is about a race between the USA and the USSR to get to the Moon first, with both countries launching flights almost simultaneously. Melodramatically plotted, and technologically bound (with considerable expertise) to the world of the 1950s and 1960s, HS's work is now an artefact of an earlier (and in some ways bolder) age. From about 1980 he has concentrated on non-sf tales, some of them TECHNOTHRILLERS. [JC]Other works: The Crowded Sky (1960); The Astronaut (1960); The Penetrators (1965); The Hero Ship (1969); Overboard (1977), marginal; Sounding (1982). SEAQUEST DSV US tv series (1993- ). Amblin Television/Universal. Series creator Rockne S. O'Bannon. Execprods include O'Bannon, David J. Burke, Patrick Hasburgh, Steven SPIELBERG, TommyThompson. Supervising prods include Kerry Lenhart, John J.Sakmar, Hans Tobeason, more. Dirsinclude Irvin Kershner, Les Landau, Bill L. Norton, Les Sheldon, Bryan Spicer. Writers includeLenhart, Sakmar, Michael CASSUTT, Melinda SNODGRASS, more. Stars include Roy Scheider(Capt. Nathan Bridger), Jonathan Brandis (Lucas), Don Franklin (Cmdr. Jonathan Ford), "Darwin" (voice: Frank Welker),Stephanie Beacham (Dr Kristin Westphalen, season 1), Royce D. Applegate (Chief Crocker,season 1),Edward Kerr (Lt. Brody, season 2). Two seasons to 1995, current. An 86-min pilot (Aug1993) was followed by approximately fifty 50-min episodes in the first two seasons.seaQuest DSV (so spelled out on screen), re-teaming the successful Jaws(1975) combination of Scheider and Spielberg, was the Spielberg organization's second attempt to develop a major prime-time sf tv show for NBC, the first being AMAZING STORIES,which lasted only two seasons. Critical consensus is that the producers' ambitions again exceed their grasp.The series, set around 25 years in the future, postulates an Earth loosely governed by the "United Earth Organization", wherein many nations and corporate entities have claimed areas of the ocean for colonization or resource development. The title refers to the submarine designed and commanded by Captain Nathan Bridger, a flagship vessel in the tradition of STAR TREK's U.S.S. Enterprise.Also distinctive was the introduction of "Darwin", a dolphin crew member able to communicate with his crewmates via voder-liketechnology.Young actor Jonathan Brandis, as boy genius Lucas Wolenczak, rapidly became a fan favorite.Initially conceived and promoted as fairly rigorous science fiction with an emphasis on exploration and discovery (Woods Hole oceanographer Dr Robert Ballard was a technical consultant during the first season, delivering educational messages over the closing credits),the series achieved only faltering ratings and was soon embroiled in a nearly constant cycle of retoolings and changes in creative leadership. The direction of the stories changed,increasingly emphasizing extra-terrestrial visitations and mystical phenomena, much to the publicly expresseddisapproval of Scheider. Several cast members departed or were dismissed after the first season, when it was announced that second-season production would be moved to Florida from Hollywood.Part of seaQuest DSV's rocky history may arise from its time slot, 8.00pm Sunday,opposite CBS's venerablMurder, She Wrote and ABC's SUPERMAN vehicle LOIS & CLARK. Never a solid ratings success, it showed a further marked decline in ratingstowards the end of the second season. Prospects for a third season appear uncertain, and further retooling is likely, but loyal fans have mounted a well-organized lobbying campaign reminiscent of that launched nearly 30 years earlier to preserve the original Star Trekseries.Tie-in material has included a novelisation of the pilot by Diane DUANE and Peter Morwood, novels by Matthew J. Costello and David BISCHOFF, and a short-lived comic book from Nemesis Comics. [JCB] SECONDARY WORLD J.R.R. TOLKIEN. SECONDS Film (1966). Paramount/Joel/Gibraltar. Dir John FRANKENHEIMER, starring Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Will Geer. Screenplay Lewis John Carlino, from Seconds (1963) by David ELY. 106 mins. B/w.A middle-aged businessman (Randolph) pays a large sum to have his death faked and his youth restored by futuristic surgery, so that he can start a new life in a new body (Hudson). Tiring of the young swingers he now moves with, he learns it is impossible to return to his old life. The shadowy organization which arranged all this turns menacing at his backsliding, and eventually has him killed, to be recycled for his body parts. The idea was old, but the treatment, with its cold evocation of PARANOIA - all Frankenheimer's best films feature powerful conspiracies using technological means of manipulation (brainwashing in the case of 1962's The MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE ) - was in advance of its time, anticipating the sombre conspiracy movies of the 1970s. S is much helped by James Wong Howe's moody, alienating black-and-white photography. [JB/PN]See also: CINEMA. SECRETS OF F.P.1 F.P.1 ANTWORTET NICHT. SECRET FILES OF CAPTAIN VIDEO, THE CAPTAIN VIDEO. SEDBERRY, J(AMES) HAMILTON (1863-? ) US writer known only for Under the Flag of the Cross (1908), in which, in AD2005, a valiant US Army fights off a Mongolian-Japanese invasion with electric rifles. [JC] SEESTERN Ferdinand GRAUTOFF. SEI'UN AWARDS AWARDS; JAPAN. SEKSMISJA (vt Sex Mission) Film (1984). Zespoly Filmowe. Dir Juliusz Machulski, starring Olgierd psukaszewicz, Jerzy Stuhr, Bozena Stryjkowna, Boguslawa Pawelec. Screenplay Machulski, Jolanta Hartwig, Pawel Hajny. 121 mins. Colour.A solemn adventurer and a jolly wastrel volunteer for a CRYOGENICS experiment and wake up 50 years later, after atomic war has (supposedly) devastated the surface and the survivors have retreated into the usual underground enclaves. There are no more men, and the mildly totalitarian society is run by parthenogenetic women. The wastrel is keen on reintroducing traditional methods of procreation, while the SCIENTIST is more interested in demonstrating the follies of the brave new world. In the Eastern European tradition of satirical sf, this Polish production uses BUCK ROGERS trappings to get a few cheap laughs out of women. The occasional sharp point is made, but S is surprisingly unwitty and obvious; its anti- FEMINISM, latent throughout, emerges at the end when it is revealed that society's matriarch is a manipulative male transvestite. S is mainly redeemed by its wry performances, particularly by Stuhr, POLAND's favourite comedian, as the lecherous lazybones. [KN] SELBY, CURT Doris PISERCHIA. SELECTED SCIENCE FICTION Australian DIGEST-size magazine. 5 slim (32pp saddle-stapled) monthly issues May-Sep 1955, published by Malian Press, Sydney; ed anon. SSF, a companion to AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, reprinted US material of quite good quality. [FHP] SELLERS, CON Working name of US writer Connie Leslie Sellers (1922-1992), author of at least 100 novels invarious genres.His sf work, which is not significant, includes F.S.C. (1963),The PleasureMongers (1964; vt Mr.Tomorrow1974) and Red Rape(1964). [JC] SELLINGS, ARTHUR Pseudonym of UK writer and bookseller Robert Arthur Ley (1921-1968), who began publishing sf stories with "The Haunting" for Authentic in 1953; the best of his output of about30 tales was assembled in Time Transfer (coll 1956; with 5 stories cut 1966) and The Long Eureka (coll 1968). In the 1960s his productivity increased; he died (suddenly, of a heart attack) just as he was gaining more and more notice. His first novel, Telepath (1962 US; vt The Silent Speakers 1963 UK), is typical of all his best work in the complexity of its protagonist (who must deal with his discovery of his own limited ESP ability), the careful realization of venue, and a sense that, although it may be intrusive, the unknown must be faced and lived with. Later novels, quite variously expressing this quiet but competent point of view, include: The Uncensored Man (1964), whose protagonist is transferred via drugs into another DIMENSION where he develops previously masked PSI POWERS and meets dubiously superior forms of life ( SUPERMAN); The Quy Effect (1966), in which a man faces the consequences attendant upon his invention of ANTIGRAVITY while at the same time falling in love; Intermind (1967 US as Ray Luther; 1969 UK as AS), in which a secret agent is injected with another person's memory to pursue a complex case; and The Power of X (1968), which sets an art dealer - perhaps a self-portrayal-into a world where material objects can be perfectly duplicated, calling into question the nature of the authentic work of art. AS's finest novel was his last. Junk Day (1970), a post- HOLOCAUST tale set in the ruins of his native London and peopled with engrossing character types, is perhaps grimmer than his previous work but pointedly more energetic. [JC]See also: ESP; GENERATION STARSHIPS; PERCEPTION. SEMIPROZINE In the terminology of sf FANDOM, this expression - once colloquial but enshrined since 1983 in the constitution of the World Science Fiction Society, the body that administers the HUGOs - means a semiprofessional magazine as opposed to an amateur magazine, or FANZINE. According to that constitution a magazine with a circulation of more than 10,000 is a professional magazine. A semiprozine must therefore have a circulation of less than 10,000. It must also, according to the constitution, have published at least 4 issues (at least 1 in the previous calendar year) and fulfil 2 of the following 5 criteria: have an average press run of at least 1000 copies; pay its contributors and/or staff in other than copies of the publication; provide at least half the income of any one person; have at least 15% of its total space occupied by advertising; announce itself to be a semiprozine. Charles N. BROWN, editor of LOCUS magazine (which has won numerous Hugos for Best Semiprozine), states additionally in his regular commentaries on magazine publishing that the frequency of a semiprozine should be at least quarterly, and that unlike a professional magazine it should not have national newsstand circulation. A number of the most important magazines of comment in the fields of sf and fantasy, and several of the magazines that publish fiction, are or have been semiprozines. [PN] SENARENS, LUIS PHILIP (1863-1939) US writer, editor and publishing aide. Under at least 27 pseudonyms he wrote perhaps 2000 stories, mostly boys' fiction, beginning in his teens. In later life, when that market declined, he served as managing editor for the Tousey publications, edited the weekly Motion Picture Stories and wrote motion-picture scenarios. He remains best known for his early work. In 1882, under the house pseudonym " NONAME", he took over the Frank Reade, Jr. series of dime novels ( DIME-NOVEL SF; FRANK READE LIBRARY), later claiming to have written "most" of the 179 stories about Frank Reade, Jr. and "all" the comparable Jack Wright yarns; these claims may be overstated. LPS exemplified the worst in the dime-novel tradition: very bad writing, sadism, ethnic rancour, factual ignorance and an exploitational mentality. On the positive side, he led the dime novel away from eccentric inventions into a developmental stream that culminated in modern CHILDREN'S SF. [EFB/JE]About the author: "The American Jules Verne" (anon) in Science and Invention, Oct 1920; "Lu Senarens, Writer of a Thousand Thrillers" by E. Alden in American Magazine, Apr 1921; "Ghosts of Prophecies Past" by Sam MOSKOWITZ in Explorers of the Infinite (coll 1963); intro by E.F. BLEILER to The Frank Reade Library (omni, 10 vols 1979-86), which reprinted the complete FRANK READE LIBRARY. SENDER, THE Film (1982). Kingsmere Properties/Paramount. Dir Roger Christian, starring Shirley Knight, Kathryn Harrold, Zeljko Ivanek, Paul Freeman. Screenplay Thomas Baum. 91 mins. Colour.This modest melodrama, on the borderline between sf and HORROR, tells of a hospitalized young man (Ivanek) whose PSI POWERS of telepathic projection and TELEKINESIS cause major disruption. As in VIDEODROME of the same year, the dividing line between the real and the hallucinatory is invisible, to disturbing effect, as bleeding mirrors and severed heads proliferate. It is a crisply told story, though the cod psychiatric explanation (which hinges on a possibly incestuous relationship of the patient with his mother, played by Knight) is less interesting than the phenomena themselves. This was the debut feature of the director, Christian, who had previously worked as set decorator on STAR WARS and as joint art director on ALIEN. [PN] SENGOKU JIETAI (vt Time Slip) Film (1981). Toho. Dir Kosei Saito, starring Sonny Chiba, Iasao Natsuki, Miyuki Ono, Jana Okada. Screenplay Toshio Kaneda, based on Sengoku Jietai (1971) by Ryo Hammura ( JAPAN). 139 mins, cut to 100 mins. Colour.Based on one of Ryo Hammura's intelligent novels, which use sf reinterpretations to comment on Japanese history, this tells of a troop of modern Japanese soldiers caught in a timeslip and transported back to 16th-century conflicts in the same area between local warlords. The troop's commander, unlike the agonized ship's captain in The FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980), has no hesitation in trying to change history so that he and his men might somehow be returned to their own time, and sets about conquering Japan. This action adventure plays its sf riffs confidently, and shows visual flair in the numerous gory battle scenes in which few soldiers (with modern technology) face many samurai (with very sharp swords). [PN] SENSE OF WONDER A term used to describe the sensation which, according to the CLICHE of fan criticism that goes back at least to the 1940s, good sf should inspire in the reader. In Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979) Darko SUVIN summed up the attitude of many critics by describing the term as "another superannuated slogan of much SF criticism due for a deserved retirement into the same limbo as extrapolation". And yet . . ."Sense of wonder" is an interesting critical phrase, for it defines sf not by its content but by its effect (the term " HORROR" is another such). Several fan critics, notably Alexei and Cory PANSHIN in The World Beyond the Hill (1989), have attempted to locate the "sense of wonder" more specifically; the Panshins found it in sf's "quest for transcendence", which elicited wonderment from John CLUTE that the Panshins could give such emphasis to "the reified wet-dream they think of as transcendence, but which others might call fetish". It is true that to locate one abstraction, "sense of wonder", within another, "transcendence", does not take us far forward, but that does not necessarily rob the former phrase of its usefulness.The second interesting thing about "sense of wonder" is that, by consensus, it can be found par excellence in a number of books that are usually regarded as rather badly written. Both E.E. "Doc" SMITH and A.E. VAN VOGT, for example, failed to transcend the pulp style in novels which involved the transcending of many other Earthly perspectives. The simplest escape from the paradox - that sf's highest aspiration, the "sense of wonder", should often be located in its lowest form, pulp prose - is to claim that those readers who find the diamond in the dung-heap are mistaken, misled not by Smith and van Vogt directly but by their own yearning adolescent dreams, as fed by Smith, van Vogt and the others. This becomes another version of the cynical old epigram that the GOLDEN AGE OF SF is 12 (or 13, or 14), and as such may be rejected by the many readers who can still recall with perfect clarity the feelings inspired in them by their first childhood or adolescent encounters with these books, feelings that seem too honest and strong to be dismissed as youthful illusion. The term "sense of wonder" is useful precisely because it sums up these feelings accurately and succinctly. Indeed, the principle of Occam's Razor suggests that, rather than arguing (without evidence) that the diamond in the dung-heap was (or is) really a bit of old quartz, it would be more useful to accept it as a diamond, and to go on to ask the really interesting question: what was (and is) it doing there?Twin loci classici of the "sense of wonder" are the final sentences of van Vogt's THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER (1941-2 ASF; 1949 Thrilling Wonder Stories; fixup 1951) and The Weapon Makers (1943 ASF; fixup 1947; rev 1952; vt One Against Eternity 1955 dos). The first novel ends: "He would not witness but he would aid in the formation of the planets." The second novel ends: "This much we have learned. Here is the race that shall rule the sevagram."The first of these examples (the second is discussed in the entry on A.E. VAN VOGT) presents a sudden shift in perspective, as the previously human protagonist of the novel now, compelled by ever deeper seesaw-swings into the past and the future, becomes an astronomical phenomenon, the phenomenon from which we all sprang: here is the HERO as cosmological Adam. The "sense of wonder" comes not from brilliant writing nor even from brilliant conceptualizing; it comes from a sudden opening of a closed door in the reader's mind. (This phenomenon may explain why generations of readers can still quote these final lines verbatim.) In other words, the "sense of wonder" may not necessarily be something generated in the text by a writer (which is where the Panshins' analysis foundered, in their suggestion, for example, that Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's Barsoom is a "transcendent realm"): it is created by the writer putting the readers in a position from which they can glimpse for themselves, with no further auctorial aid, a scheme of things where mankind is seen in a new perspective.Cornel ROBU, in "A Key to Science Fiction: The Sublime" (Foundation #42 [Spring 1988]) and elsewhere, has argued that the new perspective is often a sudden dislocation of scale, a shift to a new position along the enormous span between cosmos and microcosm. Robu's argument that the "sublime" is the key to "sense of wonder" takes its cue from a review by Peter NICHOLLS (in Foundation #2 [June 1972]) of Poul ANDERSON's Tau Zero (1967 Gal; exp 1970), where, in an attempt to understand why so flatly characterized a book could be so moving, Nicholls took refuge in defining"sense of wonder" by quoting Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey":"And I have felt . . . a sense sublime / Of something far more deeply interfused, / Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, / And the round ocean and the living air, / And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: / A motion and a spirit, that impels. / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, / And rolls through all things." Another critic to use aesthetic notions of what he calls "the natural sublime" in an sf context has been David KETTERER in "Science Fiction and Allied Literature" (Science-Fiction Studies Mar 1976).To move from Wordsworth to van Vogt may not quite be to move from the sublime to the ridiculous. Van Vogt's hero poised in the archaic heavens ready to create the planets will indeed, and literally, be far more deeply "interfused" than the reader could possibly have expected up to that point of the novel. Young readers of van Vogt might have been amused to know that they would have to wait three decades, until about the mid-1970s, before again encountering the view implied by van Vogt's sentence - but this time lent support by the speculations of quantum physicists - that the Universe exists as an external structure only through the consciousness of its participants. The suggestion is not that van Vogt seriously anticipated the quantum physicists; it is that his last sentence invites readers to open their minds to such thoughts.Arguably, almost any "sense-of-wonder"-producing case embedded in an sf text, no matter how weak that text may be elsewhere, could be analysed to show a comparable forcing of CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH. That term was coined in the 1st edn of this encyclopedia in recognition of the fact that Nicholls's earlier "sense-of-wonder" definition in terms of the sublime was open to abuse in the form of vaguely mystical, pantheist - or, indeed, transcendent! - readings of sf texts. "Conceptual breakthrough", whereby the "sense of wonder" is inspired through paradigm shifts - a variant of the shift in perspective noted above - is a more focused term than "sublime", and perhaps a more helpful one. (A further essay by Nicholls exploring the links between conceptual breakthrough and "sense of wonder" is "Doors and Breakthroughs" in Frontier Crossings [anth 1987] ed Robert Jackson.)We do contend that, pace Suvin, the concept of "sense of wonder" may be necessary if we are to understand the essence of sf that distinguishes it from other forms of fiction, including most FANTASY. The diamond is real, and cuts. But before we can use "sense of wonder" as a defining feature we must first know more accurately what fictional elements produce it. The discussion here does not pretend to do that, only to point in some possibly useful directions.The task is made more difficult by the fact that"sense of wonder" has become a debased term even within sf FANDOM, which these days is as likely to use it ironically, spelling and pronouncing it"sensawunna"This is in part because there are so many ways in which sf writers can counterfeit, and have counterfeited, the "sense of wonder", the simplest method being to introduce into the plot something (a) alien, and (b) very, very big. BIG DUMB OBJECTS for a discussion of a subgenre particularly subject to ersatz or automatic-pilot "sense of wonder" of this kind - yet which often contrives to produce the genuine article as well.As we become older and at least in our own eyes more sophisticated, we are of course less likely to seek diamonds in dung-heaps. Perhaps younger readers find them more readily because, while they recognize a diamond when they see one, they haven't yet learned to recognize a dung-heap. In this respect the "sense of wonder"is a phenomenon of youth - but that does not make it any less real. [PN/CR] SENTRY, JOHN A. [s] Algis BUDRYS. SERIES There have been series in popular fiction, both within and outside GENRE SF, at least since there have been magazines. For example, fans of Arthur Conan DOYLE may have waited eagerly a century ago for the next Sherlock Holmes story, or, inside sf and a bit later, the next Professor Challenger story. Series are fun to write, fun to read, and they help sell magazines. There were many sf series before the advent of specialized sf magazines, examples being the Quatermain books of H. Rider HAGGARD and the much loved Barsoom and Pellucidar stories of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS, or, popular at the time but now mostly forgotten, the Dr Hackensaw series of Clement FEZANDIE. (In this encyclopedia we print series titles in bold type.) There is no point here in trying to list the most popular fantasy and sf series from, say, Robert E. HOWARD's Conan through Nelson S. BOND's Pat Pending, but there may be a point in spelling out some of the ways sf PUBLISHING has affected, and been affected by, series publication.In the 1930s, it became quite common to devote entire PULP MAGAZINES - or at least their lead novels - to a single series featuring one main character and his (or her) sidekicks. Examples include scientific detective Craig Kennedy in SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE MONTHLY (1930) or DUSTY AYRES AND HIS BATTLEBIRDS (1934-5), or, more spectacularly in terms of longevity, Doc Savage in DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE (1933-49) or The Shadow (1931-49) or CAPTAIN FUTURE (1940-44).When, in the late 1940s and the 1950s, SMALL PRESSES were set up devoted to republishing classic magazine sf, it quite often happened that their sometimes arbitrary dividing up of a series into books set the shape by which that series was ever afterwards known. Thus Isaac ASIMOV's Foundation series of 8 stories (mostly novelettes), published in ASF (1942-49), appeared in book form as if 3 novels: Foundation (fixup 1951), Foundation and Empire (fixup 1952) and Second Foundation (fixup 1953). In this instance the illusion of them being novels was not difficult to sustain, because the stories had been well planned to fit a coherent and developing pattern.When a series of stories is collected in book form, however, it is not always easy to decide, bibliographically, the degree of cohesion the stories (often revised for this format) have been given. Thus we might describe one book as "coll of linked stories" and another as a FIXUP, the latter term being used by us to describe stories sufficiently jelled together even in their first writing, or woven together by rewriting, for the result to be called a novel. To take examples, it seems fair to call George O. SMITH's Venus Equilateral (1947) a collection of linked stories, although we describe A.E. VAN VOGT's THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER (1941-2 ASF; 1949 Thrilling Wonder Stories; 1951) as a fixup (a term its author also uses), because the degree of cohesion and plotting towards a climax is very much greater in the latter than in the former. But what, for example, of Gene WOLFE's THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS (fixup 1972)? This is described by many bibliographers as a collection of linked stories, which is true. But when one comes to examine the links, including those that lie half-concealed beneath the surface of the text, then the interweaving comes to appear so strong that the book, although indeed in 3 parts, must surely be read as a single novel.These problems about sf series whose first appearance was in magazines and original anthologies came to seem somewhat old-fashioned during the 1980s and 1990s, because by far the greater number of sf series now being published were appearing in books in the first instance. That, on the face of it, is not very important, but the sinister aspect of 1980s series publishing was the implacable way in which book series were taking over more and more of the industry. These were often series thought up by a publisher or some sort of entrepreneur, or even licensed out by a film studio. That is to say, the author's primacy in writing series was beginning to lose out to the purveyors of product concept, to whose instructions the authors wrote. (The question of whether or not the authors retained copyright in the work is not necessarily connected to their following of instructions, though those authors who followed instructions but retained copyright no doubt felt rather more dignified than those who did not.) This whole depressing issue is touched on (from different perspectives) under the rubrics GAME-WORLDS, PUBLISHING, SHARECROP, SHARED WORLDand TIE. Things are seldom entirely bad, however: there have been, for example, many enjoyable original novels among the 100 or so STAR TREK ties. Even the book series spun off from GAMES AND TOYS are not all bad, though many are; in the UK, the company GAMES WORKSHOP persuaded several quite distinguished writers to write novels and stories set in worlds first created for a games format. Some of the shared-world series like WILD CARDS have produced excellent work. But, even when the exceptions are admitted, there remains a huge residue that few demanding readers could find anything but dispiriting: series as formula, writing by numbers. In FANTASY writing, for example, for every trilogy published that actually requires 3 vols for its adequate development, there are half a dozen that are trilogies (or even longer) for no better reason than to fill slots in the marketing space. In HEROIC FANTASY (or SWORD AND SORCERY) the series mentality is especially strong, as it is in SURVIVALIST FICTION and post- HOLOCAUST sf. All this is saddening, because previously series had held a very honourable position in the history of sf's development. Many readers of an earlier generation had their innocent SENSE OF WONDER first awakened by E. E. "Doc" SMITH's Lensmen stories (1934-50), and that is a comparatively straightforward SPACE-OPERA example. In a series, there can be room for enormous conceptual elaborations which could scarcely be confined within the covers of a single book, as (arguably) in Frank HERBERT's Dune series, or Larry NIVEN's Known Space series (a good example of the whole coming to seem greater than the sum of its parts), or Ursula K. LE GUIN's Hainish novels, or C.J. CHERRYH's Union/Alliance sequence, or Bruce STERLING's Shaper/Mechanist series, or Brian W. ALDISS's Helliconia novels, or Gene WOLFE's Book of the New Sun (more readily thought of as a 4-vol novel), or Michael MOORCOCK's Jerry Cornelius books. It would obviously be possible to extend this sequence for a very long way even while restricting it to unusually distinguished work. Be sf in the form of HARD SF, NEW WAVE, CYBERPUNK or SCIENCE FANTASY, it has been one of its great strengths (and one of its unifying factors) that, unlike most MAINSTREAM fiction, it has been able to work on such broad canvases. So far as we are aware, nobody has made any academic analysis of the effect of series-writing on the HISTORY OF SF, but the result would surely be a confirmation that series developments have been at sf's very heart, certainly in the special but vital case of future histories ( HISTORY OF SF). It may not be too great an imaginative leap to see the whole of GENRE SF as constituting a kind of gigantic meta-series (or multiverse), in which intellectual developments in the form of constantly evolving protocols and motifs are passed from writer to writer. Certainly many sf readers share an intuitive, metaphysical sense that the entirety of genre sf somehow (ignoring nitpicking distinctions) shares a common background, as if there were now a real future that has been invented by consensus of the sf community. If that seems an overstatement, then at least it can be granted that some of sf's most heroic generic exploits have been conducted, and could only have been conducted, in series form. All the more tragic, then, that the word "series" in the 1980s (and still) should gradually be changing its meaning to "multi-volume packaged commercial product". [PN] SERIMAN, ZACCARIA [r] ITALY. SERLING, ROD Working name of US screenwriter and TELEVISION producer Rodman Edward Serling (1924-1975), best known for the tv series The TWILIGHT ZONE , for which he won 3 HUGOS (1960-62). A paratrooper in WWII, he went to New York in 1948 as a freelance writer, first for radio and then for tv. During the 1950s he became one of the most highly regarded tv writers, winning many awards including 6 Emmies for such tv plays as Patterns (1955), Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956) and The Comedian (1957). In 1959 he created, wrote and produced the first of his The Twilight Zone anthology series, on which he also appeared as host; his dark figure and gravelly tones became very familiar to viewers. The series, mainly fantasy dramas with some sf, lasted 5 years. In 1970 he tried to repeat this success with a similar series, ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY, but it lasted only until 1972. In addition to his tv work, which included writing many episodes for both The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, RS wrote a number of filmscripts such as those for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1963; based on his tv script), John FRANKENHEIMER's Seven Days in May (1964) and the original version (later rewritten) of PLANET OF THE APES (1968).RS could hardly be described as an original writer, but he was certainly clever at adapting existing ideas and was a capable craftsman. He had the knack of producing work that, in the context of most tv material, seemed more daring and profound than it really was; his major flaw was slickness. Whatever his limitations, The Twilight Zone came as a breath of fresh air to fans of fantasy and sf, who had previously had little tv material available.RS wrote some of his teleplays into short-story form and published several collections: Stories from The Twilight Zone * (coll 1960), More Stories from The Twilight Zone * (coll 1961), New Stories from The Twilight Zone * (coll 1962) - these two almost certainly ghostwritten, possibly by Walter B. GIBSON - The Season to Be Wary * (coll 1967), Night Gallery * (coll 1971) and Night Gallery 2 * (coll 1972). Selections from the first 3 of these appeared in From The Twilight Zone * (coll 1962) and all the contents of the first 3 in an omnibus, again titled Stories from The Twilight Zone * (omni 1986). Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone * (coll 1963) and Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Revisited * (coll 1964), ghostwritten by Walter B. Gibson, were collected as the omnibus Rod Serling's Twilight Zone * (omni 1984). Of 3 further anthologies, Rod Serling's Triple W: Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves (anth 1963), Rod Serling's Devils and Demons (anth 1967) and Rod Serling's Other Worlds (coll 1978), the first 2 at least were ghost-edited by Gordon R. DICKSON, and RS had been dead for 3 years by the time the 3rd appeared.RS's name has continued to be used as a marketing device. His widow, Carol Serling, who retains RS's tv rights, edited Rod Serling's Night Gallery Reader * (anth 1987) with Martin H. GREENBERG and Charles G. WAUGH. More importantly, she also played a prominent role as editorial consultant in setting up Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine (1981-9), initially monthly, which achieved prominence in the fantasy/horror field. [JB/PN] SERNINE, DANIEL Pseudonym of Canadian writer Alain Lortie (1955- ), a central force in Canadian sf, who began publishing in 1975 with the dark fantasies "Jalbert" and "La Bouteille" ["The Bottle"] for Requiem, later serving (from 1983) on the editorial collective of that magazine, now renamed SOLARIS ( CANADA). His early work has been collected in Les Contes de l'ombre ["Tales from the Shadow"] (coll 1979). His novels, marketed as juveniles, are split into 2 main series: the Grandverger fantasies, set in an imaginary enclave of New France - Legendes du vieux manoir ["Tales from the Old Manor House"] (coll 1979), Le Tresor du "Scorpion" (1980; trans as The "Scorpion" Treasure 1990), L'Epee Arhapal (1981; trans as The Sword Arhapal 1990) and Le Cercle Violet ["The Purple Circle"] (1984) - and the Exode or Argus sequence, about a benevolent extraterrestrial organization keeping watch on the Earth: Organisation Argus (1979; trans David Homel as Those Who Watch the Skies 1990), Argus Intervient (1983; trans David Homel as Argus Steps In 1990), Argus: mission mille ["Argus: The Thousandth Mission"] (1989) and Les Reves d'Argus ["The Dreams of Argus"] (1991). Both series are brought together in La nef dans le nuages ["The Ship in the Clouds"] (1989). Some of the adult stories assembled in Le Vieil Homme et l'espace ["The Old Man and Space"] (coll 1981) also belong to the Exode saga; the collection as a whole effectively displays DS's social and political interests, as does the ambitious and well received Les Meandres du temps ["The Meanders of Time"] (1983). More recently, he has begun publishing tales set in a neverending Carnival; these have been assembled as Boulevard des etoiles ["Stardust Boulevard"] (coll 1991) and A la Recherche de Monsieur Goodtheim ["Looking for Mr Goodtheim"] (coll 1991). This more recent work shows a willingness to explore new avenues, a willingness also demonstrated by Chronoreg (1992), a complex and bleak time-travel tale, set in an ALTERNATE WORLD Earth, and featuring a homosexual telepathic death-haunted mercenary. [LP]Other works: La Cite inconnue ["The Unknown City"] (1982); Ludovic (1983); Les Envoutements ["Bewitchments"] (1985); Quand vient la nuit ["As Night Falls"] (coll 1983); Aurores Boreales 2 (anth 1985); Nuits Blemes "Wan Nights" (1990); Quatres destins ["Four Destinies"] (1990); La Magicienne bleue ["The Blue Magician"] (1991); Le Cercle de Khaleb ["Khaleb's Circle"] (1991). SERVICE, PAMELA F. (1945- ) US writer of fantasy and sf, usually for older children, beginning with the Winter sequence of post- HOLOCAUST fantasies invoking King Arthur: Winter of Magic's Return (1985) and Tomorrow's Magic (1987). Of sf interest are: A Question of Destiny (1986), a young-adult sf thriller; Stinker from Space (1988 chap) and its sequel, Stinkers Return (1993); Under Alien Stars (1990), set on an Earth occupied by ALIEN invaders whose mores challenge human prejudices, and who themselves are under attack from space; and Weirdos of the Universe, Unite! (1992), which unconvincingly pits figures from human MYTHOLOGY against another alien INVASION. [JC]Other works: When the Night Wind Howls (1987); The Reluctant God (1988), a TIME-TRAVEL fantasy; Vision Quest (1989); Wizard of Wind and Rock (1990); Being of Two Minds (1991); Weirdos of the Universe, Unite! (1993). SERVICE, ROBERT W(ILLIAM) (1874-1958) UK-born poet and novelist, in Canada 1896-1912, where much of his exceedingly popular verse was set. Of his several novels, The Master of the Microbe: A Fantastic Romance (1926) is sf, featuring a deadly plague virus developed by a vengeful German but stolen from him by a master-criminal. The House of Fear (1927) is a werewolf tale. [JC] SERVISS, GARRETT P(UTMAN) (1851-1929) US journalist and writer who majored in science at Cornell University, then studied law, and only afterwards entered journalism, working on 2 New York newspapers before moving into freelance writing and lecturing. His speciality was ASTRONOMY; his Other Worlds (1901) was a significant work of popular science. In 1897 he was commissioned to write an unofficial sequel to an equally unofficial US newspaper recasting of H. G. WELLS's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1898), which was then making a considerable stir as a newspaper and magazine serial, and - in the absence of adequate copyright protection - inspiring various imitations along the way. GPS's "sequel" was Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898 The New York Journal; 1947; cut vt Forrest J. Ackerman Presents Invasion of Mars 1969), a tale which quite remarkably captured the ebullient US spirit of the time. Edison himself ( EDISONADE) is the protagonist. After the first wave of Martians have duly perished of bacteria, he invents a disintegrating WEAPON and an ANTIGRAVITY machine, using the latter to power 100 SPACESHIPS he has persuaded the nations of the world to build. The armada invades MARS, and after many battles causes its polar icecap to melt, which results in a genocidal flood. The book was one of the first edisonades to be written for adults, and perhaps the only adult presentation of the entrepreneurial inventor to mention his name on its title page. In details of plot, and in its triumphal narrative tone, it closely prefigured the SPACE-OPERA edisonades of E.E. "Doc" SMITH and his imitators.GPS's remaining sf is intermittently vivid, but lacks the seemingly unconscious mythopoeic potency of his first. In The Moon Metal (1900), set in 1940, a mysterious figure supplies the world with a rare untraceable metal which serves, for a while, as a new fiscal standard ( MONEY). "The Sky Pirate" (1909 The Scrap Book) features the superscientific exploits of the eponymous adventurer. A Columbus in Space (1909 All-Story Magazine; rev 1911) features another pioneering SPACE FLIGHT, this time to VENUS. The Second Deluge (1912) is a DISASTER novel in which the Earth is inundated to a depth of several miles as a result of passing through a "nebula" composed of water; a latter-day Noah, having built an ark, saves all God's creatures and visits the US West, where the President has also been saved. This novel was reprinted 3 times: in AMAZING STORIES (1926), AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY (1933) and FANTASTIC NOVELS (1948). GPS's last story, The Moon Maiden (1915 The Argosy; 1978 chap), is a dubiously complicated love tale in which it is revealed that lunar beings have been guiding us upwards for millennia. In a sense, GPS was born too soon; born 20 years later he might have become one of the prolific masters of the new sf. [JC/MJE]See also: DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; END OF THE WORLD; HISTORY OF SF; HOLOCAUST AND AFTER; MATTER TRANSMISSION; NUCLEAR POWER; PULP MAGAZINES; SCIENTISTS. SEVEN DAYS IN MAY Fletcher KNEBEL; John FRANKENHEIMER. SEVERANCE, CAROL (ANN WILCOX) (1944- ) US writer who began publishing work of genre interest with "Isle of Illusion" for Tales of the Witch World (anth 1987) ed Andre NORTON. Her first novel, Reefsong (1991), features a genetically altered female protagonist sent on an interstellar mission by the corporation which controls her destiny. The Island Warrior sequence - comprisingDemon Drums (1992), Storm Caller (1993) and Sorcerous Sea (1993) - is fantasy. [JC] SEX This entry is primarily about human sexual relationships and sexual stereotypes as themes in sf; i.e., it is primarily about PSYCHOLOGY and SOCIOLOGY. It discusses neither procreation nor the various inventive methods of ALIEN sexual reproduction devised by sf writers.Traditionally sf has been a puritanical and male-oriented literature. Before the 1960s there was little sf that consciously investigated sexual questions but, as with all popular literatures, what is implied is often as important as what is openly put forward. Seen from this viewpoint, sf has been an accurate reflector of popular prejudices and feelings about sex over the years - especially in stories at the PULP-MAGAZINE end of the sf spectrum, where the fantasies and TABOOS of the day are encapsulated more clearly than in sophisticated works.An important theme of pulp sf - sex as beastliness - appeared much earlier. Jonathan SWIFT's famous work of PROTO SCIENCE FICTION, Gulliver's Travels (1726; rev 1735), in its 4th book contrasts the brutish life of carnality led by the human-like Yahoos - much given to public defecation and genital display - with the life of reason led by the intelligent, horse-like Houyhnhnms; everyone understands the satirical assault on the Yahoos, but fewer critics have recognized the horses' fastidious squeamishness as being also, more subtly, under attack. Swift's 18th-century frankness about sex was not to appear in sf again with the same force for more than two centuries.In the 19th century, feelings about sex were implied but seldom dealt with openly. The sexual fears and fantasies often involved in GOTHIC SF tended to be envisioned as powerful, irrational forces, difficult to quell. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831) by Mary SHELLEY is more overt than most in asking whether the artificial man's bestial urges, unfettered by a soul, would prove devastating. This aspect of the story has been emphasized in several film versions of FRANKENSTEIN, especially in the parody Young Frankenstein (1974), where the monster's amorous abilities prove as formidable as we had always suspected.Frankenstein points towards a recurrent theme in pulp sf: fear of the ALIEN manifest (at least in the subtext) as fear of a sexual capacity greater than ours, just as White men stereotypically fear Black as sexual athletes too well endowed to compete against. The menace of the alien is often seen in sexual terms in sf ILLUSTRATIONS, which right through the magazines of the 1930s and 1940s had a stronger sexual charge than the milk-and-water stories they purported to illuminate.The sf pulp magazines seldom attempted to titillate in the manner of, say, Spicy Mystery Stories - an exception was MARVEL SCIENCE STORIES (especially in its incarnation as Marvel Tales), which contained stories like "Lust Rides the Roller Coaster". Generally, however, the SF MAGAZINES proved unable to link the two genres of the spicy and the technological with any conviction. (The conjunction of flesh and metal, however, later proved inspirational to sf COMICS artist Jean-Claude Forest [1930- ], whose mildly erotic BARBARELLA featured a heroine who was prepared to receive even the embrace of a ROBOT - a not uncommon theme in the liberated 1970s, most amusingly dealt with in Robert SHECKLEY's "Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?" [1969]. Barbarella was successfully filmed in 1967 by Roger Vadim as a veritable compendium of the sexual fantasies to be found in sf.)The sexual implications of sf stories have varied remarkably little in the past 100 years, and most of the themes were already well established in the popular literature of the 19th century. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis STEVENSON explores the notion that the human mind contains a cheerfully bestial component controlled by a mental censor that can - in this case with drugs - be bypassed. Although there was more of METAPHYSICS than science in the idea when Stevenson penned it, developments in psychology (beginning, even as Stevenson wrote, with the work of Sigmund Freud [1856-1939]) and later neurology showed him to have been not so very far from the truth. Stevenson's fundamental theme, however, has a long history in the Christian West, where the pleasures of the flesh have traditionally been seen as sinful: it is the theme of Original Sin. Hyde was an incarnation of "the evil that lurks in the heart of Man". Sin and retribution remains a popular theme in HORROR and MONSTER MOVIES.Sf has been largely written by men, and tends to reveal specifically masculine sexual prejudices. (The female archetypes created by men are further discussed in WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION.) An interesting early example of gender archetype is found in THE TIME MACHINE (1895) by H.G. WELLS. The future races discovered by the Time Traveller are the masculine, hairy Morlocks and the effeminate, beautiful, irresponsible Eloi, who are ultimately just cattle for the Morlocks. The two races allegorize 19th-century sexual distinctions and class distinctions simultaneously. One of the illustrations by Virgil FINLAY to a magazine reprint of the story makes the point vividly.To immature men, women often appear like an alien race, and much popular sf reflects a fear of their threatening foreignness. The stereotype of the Amazon Queen - imperious, cruel and desirable - is abundantly present in She (1887) and other novels by H. Rider HAGGARD. The she-devil, a favourite recurring Victorian literary archetype (Victorian pornography makes just as much of women chastising men with whips as vice versa), turns up throughout pulp sf, notably in the romances of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS and in many tales published in PLANET STORIES.It might be expected that the image of woman as all-engulfing Holy Prostitute and She-Fiend would be an exclusively masculine fantasy, but - perhaps because it is at least an image of power in a world where, during the era of the pulp magazines, women were relatively powerless - it attracted some women writers. C.L. MOORE made a speciality of such figures, notably in her Northwest Smith tales. The Medusa creature in Moore's "Shambleau" (1933) is an archetype of the female as a fantasy of sexual horror: "From head to foot he was slimy from the embrace of the crawling horror about him . . . and the look of terrible ecstasy that overspread [his face] seemed to come from somewhere far within"The conjunction of womanhood and slime may have pathological connotations, but is familiar enough in GENRE SF and elsewhere. Consider the following passage from The Deathworms of Kratos (1975) by Richard Avery (Edmund COOPER): "Each time she was penetrated, the queen's huge body rippled and arched and she gave out a hissing, screaming grunt. Steam rose from her straining body, gouts of milky fluid dripped from her immense length, bubbling from her orifices . . ." The sexual confusions are intense: the queen is a giant worm, and, though female, unmistakably phallic in shape. The watchers are "sickened" but excited and, within pages, are asking the spaceship captain for permission to pair off and copulate. The sexual ambiguities here are of the very essence of pulp sf.Some of the worst sexual crudities in sf, much attacked by FEMINISTS of both sexes, are found in the male writers of HEROIC FANTASY. What was merely a subtext in Robert E. HOWARD's Conan stories of the 1930s had become explicit and central in John NORMAN's Gor books of the 1960s: a male desire to exert power over women, which Norman depicts in his many bondage and flagellation scenes in a manner clearly intended to be sexually arousing. The visual counterpart of these writings can be seen in the paintings of Frank FRAZETTA, whose ripe, lush beauties, when not being menaced by scaly, phallic monsters or subdued by men, are themselves cruel Amazons, holding the most brawny-thewed men in thrall.Miscegenation, the mixing of races, is another common sexual theme in sf. It was often seen in LOST-WORLD fiction from around the turn of the century to be degrading ( DEVOLUTION), as in Austyn GRANVILLE's The Fallen Race (1892), where a primitive tribe has resulted from the bestial union of aboriginals and kangaroos. But even during the period up to the 1920s, when racist popular fiction was the rule rather than the exception, miscegenation could be seen as a good thing. An early human-alien union can be found in Burroughs's A PRINCESS OF MARS (1912; exp 1917), symbolized in the amusing scene where John Carter stands proudly next to his wife, the princess, looking at their child in its incubator: the child at this stage is a large egg. For decades the sf magazines, notably Planet Stories, often featured on their covers BEMS with lascivious expressions pursuing human women - an obvious absurdity ( SCIENTIFIC ERRORS).Thus far we have emphasized the sexual assumptions of society - especially male society - as revealed in sf, but not as analysed in sf. The very nature of sf, however, in which societies with cultures and appearances different from our own can be readily imagined, makes it an excellent medium for asking hard questions about our own sexual prejudices. By the 1980s, the conservative sexual bigotry of sf had largely given way to a radical exploration of alternative sexual possibilities (though these, too, produced their own CLICHES). The process had first got under way in the early 1950s, when Philip Jose FARMER and Theodore STURGEON treated the miscegenation theme more seriously. Hitherto magazine sf, no matter what it might coyly imply, had never been sexually explicit. Kay Tarrant, assistant to John W. CAMPBELL Jr, the editor of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION (later Analog), was famous for her prudishness, and persuaded many writers to remove "offensive" scenes and "bad language" from their stories. This was partly in keeping with the spirit of the age and partly to protect adolescent boys, probably ASF's main readership. Some writers made a game of outwitting her; in his story"Rat Race" (1947) George O. SMITH got away with mentioning a "ball-bearing mousetrap" on one page, revealing on the next page the device: a tomcat. But both Farmer and Sturgeon were, for their period, explicit. They recognized that, in a genre which prided itself on imagining new and different societies, the sexual taboo was absurdly anachronistic, particularly because it did not exist to the same degree in conventional fiction. Sturgeon explored both three-way relationships and human-alien relationships in a number of stories and novels, notably Venus Plux X (1960), a savage attack on gender stereotyping. Farmer's THE LOVERS (1952 Startling Stories; exp 1961) dealt with inter-species love and sex, as did many of his stories, including "Mother" (1953), in which a spaceman is inveigled into an alien womb, where he makes his home - perhaps the ultimate in Freudian sf stories. Both these writers questioned concepts of "normal" and "perverse" (although there is a critical argument about the degree of crudeness, salacity or sometimes sentimentality with which the attempt was made).By the 1960s miscegenation was an acceptable serious theme in sf, and it was perhaps most carefully and delicately explored in Ursula K. LE GUIN's novel THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (1969). An ordinary human is forced to rethink the whole question of sexual roles when faced with a race (and emotionally involved with one of its members) who are bisexual in that they can be, at different times, either man, woman or neuter. A sensitive treatment of love between alien races is STRANGERS (1974 New Dimensions; exp 1978) by Gardner DOZOIS, which draws attention to the ghastly errors that can occur from trying to understand a foreign society in terms of the assumptions of one's own.After the pioneer work of Sturgeon and Farmer-and also such mildly daring works as The Disappearance (1951) by Philip WYLIE, which postulates a total but temporary division between the societies of men and of women, "Consider Her Ways" (1956) by John WYNDHAM, which deals with an ambiguously utopian all-women society, and The Girls from Planet 5 (1955) by Richard WILSON, which deals skittishly with a similar theme - the breaking of the dam came with the so-called NEW WAVE in the 1960s. Suddenly, explicit sex was commonplace in sf, in work by Brian W. ALDISS, J.G. BALLARD, Samuel R. DELANY, Norman SPINRAD and many others. Harlan ELLISON's consciously taboo-breaking anthology DANGEROUS VISIONS (anth 1967) printed some stories of this type.Writers of an older generation, such as Isaac ASIMOV and Robert A. HEINLEIN, also blossomed out into the freedom of the 1960s. In much of Heinlein's late work the central theme is a strong plea for sexual emancipation, sometimes expressed with a kind of embarrassing locker-room prurience. This was his emphasis from his popular STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961) onwards, most obviously in I Will Fear No Evil (1970) - in which an old man is given new life in the body of his young female secretary - and again in Time Enough for Love (1973) and FRIDAY (1982).One publisher, ESSEX HOUSE, specialized in pornographic sf (a genre that had its heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s) including Farmer's The Image of the Beast (1968) and A Feast Unknown (1969) as well as books by Hank STINE and David MELTZER. Other publishers followed suit, notably Olympia and Ophelia Press, which published sf erotica by, among others, Charles PLATT and Barry N. MALZBERG, the latter's work being perhaps the gloomiest pornography ever published. Most of the above were partially serious in intent, and sometimes more emetic than erotic. Slightly less reputable houses published pornography by Richard E. GEIS and Andrew J. OFFUTT, and down at the bottom of the barrel could be found books with titles like Anal Planet (1976) by Alex Forbes. (A number of other sf writers - including both Marion Zimmer BRADLEY and Robert SILVERBERG under pseudonyms - occasionally published non-sf erotica, usually as a quick way of earning money.)Some critics consider that the most distinguished work of "pornographic" sf is Crash (1973) by J.G. Ballard, in which images of technology and images of sex are interwoven to make an ambiguous and not necessarily disapproving comment on the nature of technological society and its alienations. The central images of this book are the orgasm and the car crash, the one often leading to the other. Also of note are some of the stories in Ballard's THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION (coll 1970; vt Love and Napalm: Export USA 1972 US).Sf is more liable than other genres, with the exception of horror, to link sex with disgust. Robert BLOCH, Ray BRADBURY and Sturgeon all wrote stories in which images of sex overlap with images of violence, blood, revulsion and pain, yet these authors are generally considered to be towards the more "liberal" end of the sf spectrum. This dis-ease with sexuality, perhaps cultural in origin, is also reflected in a recurrent image of overtly sexual sf: a mind/body dualism in which the body is seen as "alien" and governing the mind, rather than governed by it or in partnership with it.On the more positive side, sf that consciously judges the sexual prejudices of our own society by imagining societies with quite different sexual expectations began - relatively speaking - to flourish from the 1970s on, though remaining rather a small subgenre within sf as a whole. Many of these works were written by women, especially feminist writers, most notably Joanna RUSS, and are discussed under FEMINISM. Such writers have made extrapolations towards cultures where troilism, homosexuality, bisexuality or even pansexuality is the norm. Samuel R. DELANY does so in much of his writing, notably in DHALGREN (1975) and Triton (1976) along with later works. Thomas M. DISCH does so in 334 (1972). Sf with a homosexual or bisexual theme is now commonplace, though Delany, for one, has suffered censorship from book-distribution companies for dramatizing these issues. An interesting reference work in this field is Uranian Worlds: A Reader's Guide to Alternative Science Fiction and Fantasy (1983; rev 1990) by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, which annotates 935 novels and stories of "variant sexuality", plus films. (Sf FANDOM, too, has recognized the interest in gay sf with the formation in 1987 of the Gaylactic Network, based in Massachusetts, with 7 affiliated Gaylaxian groups in the USA and Canada.)Two important writers on sexual themes, both interested in "alternative" sexuality and both attaining prominence in the 1970s, have been James TIPTREE Jr and John VARLEY. Tiptree (not revealed to be a woman until 1977, when she had been publishing sf for a decade) sadly, savagely examined the skewings of sexual impulse in much of her work; it was her central theme, and with her anthropologist's eye she dissected it with great power. Varley, who works with broader strokes, examines polymorphous eroticism - with dazzle and schmaltz perhaps approaching too closely the condition of the romp - among the several themes of his Gaean trilogy: Titan (1979), Wizard (1980) and Demon (1984). More recently, Sexual Chemistry (coll 1991) by Brian M. STABLEFORD deals wryly with sexual issues, though its prime theme is GENETIC ENGINEERING.The great change in sexual life during the 1980s was (as it still is) the AIDS epidemic, among whose many results has been the higher premium now placed on monogamy. Much sf of the 1980s has (either directly or metaphorically) touched on the AIDS theme, including Unicorn Mountain (1988) by Michael BISHOP and the surreal, sodomitical nightmares of The Fire Worm (1988) by Ian WATSON. A distinguished short story on the theme is Judith MOFFETT's "Tiny Tango" (1989), later incorporated into THE RAGGED WORLD: A NOVEL OF THE HEFN ON EARTH (1991), which features, among many strange, sad images, that of an HIV-positive woman who voyeuristically frequents male lavatories wearing a fake penis.Sf CINEMA has also been transformed in the past two decades, though much of its sexual explicitness in the 1970s and 1980s is merely titillation, as in MY STEPMOTHER IS AN ALIEN (1988). The mild frissons of ALRAUNE (1928), with its image of the soulless seductress formed by artificial insemination, or I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE (1958), with its theme of the bridegroom-cum- MONSTER (a traditional fear), have given way to the women who kill with sex in INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) and the alien orgasm-feeders of LIQUID SKY (1982). But by far the most sophisticated, and to some disgusting, of modern cinematic explorations of sexuality are the films of David CRONENBERG, especially The PARASITE MURDERS (1974; vt They Came from Within; vt Shivers), RABID (1976), The BROOD (1979), VIDEODROME (1982), The FLY (1986) and Dead Ringers (1989). From the parasite-induced nymphomania of the first, through the sexual metamorphoses of the next four, to the grotesquely cruel gynaecological technology of the last, the much-abused and -penetrated body is both the battlefield of Cronenberg's mind/body metaphysics and the object of his tenderness.Perhaps the strongest anthology of sf stories with sexual themes is Alien Sex (anth 1990) ed Ellen DATLOW; this includes Connie WILLIS's shocking, but to some unconvincing, "All My Darling Daughters" (1985), about child and animal abuse, which presents men as sexual sadists. Arrows of Eros (anth 1989) ed Alex Stewart is a recent UK anthology. Strange Bedfellows: Sex and Science Fiction (1972) ed Thomas N. SCORTIA, Eros in Orbit (1973) ed Joseph Elder and The Shape of Sex to Come (1978) ed Douglas HILL are earlier theme anthologies. An amusing study, with special reference to sf ILLUSTRATION, is Great Balls of Fire! A History of Sex in Science Fiction (1977) by Harry HARRISON. 2 anthologies of critical essays about sex in sf/fantasy are Erotic Universe (anth 1986) and Eros in the Mind's Eye (anth 1986), both ed Donald Palumbo. [PN] SEX MISSION SEKSMISJA. SEYMOUR, ALAN 1. (1927- ) Australian writer, long resident in the UK, whose The Coming Self-Destruction of the United States of America (1969) features a Black revolution that, though temporarily successful, precipitates an atomic catastrophe.2. Early pseudonym used by S. Fowler WRIGHT. [JC] SF Titles of organizations, magazines, etc., which begin "SF", meaning "science fiction", are listed as if that acronym were spelt out in full. SHAARA, MICHAEL (1929-1988) US writer who began publishing sf with "All the Way Back" for ASF in 1952, and who for a few years seemed to be one of the heirs apparent to the sf pantheon. He did not remain in the field, however, and his name faded from its collective memory. His Civil War novel, The Killer Angels (1974), won a Pulitzer Prize. In the early 1980s he returned to sf for a short while with The Herald (1981), a novel set in a NEAR-FUTURE USA, where a scientist has developed a plague with which to rid the Earth of humanity. In Soldier Boy (coll 1982) he assembled his most memorable sf stories, in which a slightly distanced diction is at times absorbingly applied to straightforward genre plots involving strange planets, ALIENS and quick revelatory ironies about the human condition. [JC] SHACKLETON, C.C. [s] Brian W. ALDISS. SHADOW, THE Walter B. GIBSON; RADIO. SHAHAR, ELUKI BES [r] Eluki BES SHAHAR. SHANKS, EDWARD (RICHARD BUXTON) (1892-1953) UK editor and writer in various genres whose sf novel, The People of the Ruins: A Story of the English Revolution and After (1920), uses SUSPENDED ANIMATION to take a man 150 years onwards from a strife-torn 1924 into a balkanized primitive land whose descent into final chaos his reintroduction of WWI weaponry fails to prevent. Coming so soon after WWI, this novel may be the first to express the conservative aftermath pessimism (ES's 1924 is ruined by labour strife) that soon became common in UK sf. [JC]Other work: Old King Cole (1936), involving the revival of ancient British rites.See also: END OF THE WORLD; HISTORY IN SF; SLEEPER AWAKES; WAR. SHANNON, FRED William S. RUBEN. SHAPIRO, STANLEY (1926-1990) US writer in whose A Time to Remember (1986) a man travels back via timeslip to prevent John F. Kennedy's assassination. [JC]Other work: Simon's Soul (1977), a fantasy. SHARECROP A term almost certainly devised by Gardner DOZOIS in the late 1980s to designate a story or book which has been written on hire; that is, assigned to an author - who will not hold copyright in the piece that s/he writes - by a franchiser or the copyright owner of the concept being developed. To describe a text as sharecropped is in 1995 almost certainly to disparage it as commodity fiction, designed to fit a prearranged marketing slot and written to order according to strict instructions from the owner. Most pieces written for hire are in fact spun off from previous works or concepts, and for this reason the term has often been used to designate any tie or shared-world text, without respect to the ownership of that text. This usage tends to reduce the term to an epithet whose actual meaning is impossible to fix. In this encyclopedia - given that we are not as a whole much interested in examining contractual arrangements between authors and publishers - the term is used infrequently, and then only to designate a condition of ownership. Any text spun off from a previous work or concept not originated by the author of the text is here designated a TIE (which see for further discussion). Similarly, many sharecrops are tied to SHARED WORLDS; but the author of a shared-world text may be the originator of that world (so the work in question cannot properly be called a tie) and may also retain copyright in his or her own name (so the work cannot properly be called a sharecrop). In sum, although the three terms often overlap, they are in fact quite distinct. [JC] SHARED WORLDS Stories and novels written by different hands but sharing a setting are in this encyclopedia called shared-world stories. They are usually (but not always) published as contributions to original- ANTHOLOGY series, in turn usually (but not always) edited by the creator(s) of the original setting, who also controls the "bible". This "bible" is a set of rules controlling a shared world by defining the roles, actors, venues, genres, plots and significance of any story written within that world, and is usually shaped in the first instance by the owner(s) and/or creator(s) of the shared world in question, although it may often be augmented by later contributors, who may or may not own a share of the enterprise. A mature "bible" - like that for Jerry E. POURNELLE's War World - will almost certainly accrete, over the years, an onion growth of supplementary speculations, genealogies, tables, maps and ancillary tales; but at heart it remains a set of instructions, a kind of genetic code, for writing stories.It could be argued that the first shared-world anthology to make a significant impact on the Western World was the Christian New Testament, and that the authors of the various pieces which were eventually assembled under that name used the Old Testament as their "bible". It is, of course, understood that the Old Testament typologies which the authors of the New Testament felt impelled to match served for them as profound adumbrations of a Story which was True; but the point is made to underline the fact that the concept of pooling a vision of the Universe did not originate (as has been asserted by some) in the Thieves' World anthologies (published from 1979) created by Robert ASPRIN. Beneath and beyond the commercial shared-world enterprises of today lies a vision of (and perhaps a nostalgia for) a human Universe in the hands of a Creator, whose Book we obey (and share).If we place round-robin novels to one side as being forms of collaboration, we find that the first relevant shared-world enterprises were probably the Christmas Annual anthology/special issues produced by popular magazines and publishers in the UK after about 1860. The most significant shared-world anthology thus produced was probably Mugby Junction * (anth 1866 chap) ed Charles DICKENS, a special Christmas issue of All the Year Round, a self-contained volume entirely given over to 2 frame narratives plus 6 stories (the most famous being Dickens's own "No. 1 Branch Line, the Signalman") set at the eponymous railway stop; it involved 5 writers, 4 of them following Dickens's instructions. Other examples of the form include Beeton's Christmas Annual (anth 1880), which contained Max ADELER's "Professor Baffin's Adventures", a long lost-race tale ( LOST WORLDS) that served as the centrepiece of a series of linked stories over-titled The Fortunate Island, and was quite probably a source for Mark TWAIN's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889); and some of the parodic journal Truth's Christmas Numbers, including The Spookeries * (anth 1893 chap), Munchausen [sic] Up to Date * (anth 1894 chap), Phon-Photopsy-Grams, or Speaking Likenesses * (anth 1897 chap), Nineteen Hundred and Seven * (anth 1900 chap) and Interview with the Departed * (anth 1908 chap).Again ignoring round-robin collaborations, the first shared-world anthology in GENRE SF was The Petrified Planet (anth 1952) ed Fletcher PRATT, which contained long stories by Judith MERRIL, H. Beam PIPER and Pratt. These stories were set on the world of the title, were written according to a primitive "bible", and were the first to engage upon what would become a central activity of sf shared-world writers: world-building. While almost any premise, however loose, can become the basis of a shared world, in sf the essential shared world is literally a world, and the "bible" serves as a manual for world-building (or, in less rigorously constructed collaborations, for PLANETARY-ROMANCE excursions). A World Named Cleopatra * (anth 1977) ed Roger ELWOOD from a concept by Poul ANDERSON, Medea: Harlan's World * (anth 1985) ed Harlan ELLISON and Murasaki * (anth 1992) ed Robert SILVERBERG and Martin Harry GREENBERG are examples of planet-building exercises, and all stand close to the heart of sf. Marion Zimmer BRADLEY's Darkover sequence is an example of the planetary-romance shared world.In the meanwhile, however, the STAR TREK tv series began to generate adaptations of individual episodes, these first tales being simple novelizations rather than contributions to a shared-world enterprise (although of course in script form they adhered to series continuity); but the Star Trek owners soon ran out of adaptable stories, and the first original novels within the world - Mack REYNOLDS's children's book Mission to Horatius * (1968) and James BLISH's adult novel Spock Must Die! * (1970) - soon appeared. It is not known if Blish was tied to an extensive "bible" for the writing of this novel, but certainly later original stories - from Spock Messiah! * (1976) by Theodore COGSWELL and Charles A. Spano onward - were shaped according to a "bible" that became more and more strict as the years passed. Over a similar timespan, the approximately 140 DR WHO ties also appeared, though many of these have been adaptations - as have been most novels tied to tv series. (The simple distinction between an adaptation and a shared-world story should perhaps be made explicit: an adaptation is the reworking of an existing story or script; a shared-world tale is a narrative written according to the set of instructions, or agreements, which generate that particular setting.)There is a general assumption - which may or may not be well founded - that almost all shared-world novels tied to tv or film series are SHARECROPS, and can therefore be defined as work-for-hire contributions to "franchised worlds". In this encyclopedia, however, our focus is on the literary nature of shared worlds rather than on issues of ownership, and thus we have barely used the term "franchised"; it may be noted in passing that most franchised worlds are in fact shared-world enterprises written to strict "bibles" by authors whose disenfranchisement is generally all too evident.)Star Trek and Dr Who are examples of shared-world series whose inspiration lies in media other than the written word; the Star Wars novels of L. Neil SMITH and Timothy ZAHN belong in this category, as does the Dark Futures sequence edited by David PRINGLE, which constitutes one of the very few sf sequences based on a role-playing game ( GAME WORLDS) whose authors (although the books were sharecropped) were able to write with apparent autonomy.During the past 15 years or so, two rough categories of shared worlds have become popular. Stories written for the Witch World setting by hands other than Andre NORTON (or by other hands for Bradley's Darkover) typify the class of shared-world enterprises which are based on a setting already created by an author for his or her own use, and subsequently made available to other writers ( CLOSED UNIVERSE and OPEN UNIVERSE for brief analysis of the generally very restrictive nature of that availability). Other shared worlds of this sort include Isaac ASIMOV's Robot City, Larry NIVEN's Man-Kzin Wars, Jerry Pournelle's War World and Fred SABERHAGEN's Berserker. The second category concerns the shared-world setting created - either alone by its inventor, or by creative personnel working for hire for a packager such as the Byron PREISS enterprise, or as a communal enterprise on the part of those who plan to write within its terms - as a pure and original shared world without any preceding text to sanction or constrain it, and only a "bible" for its initial guide. Asprin's Thieves' World is of this sort. Others include: Liavek, ed Emma BULL and Will Shetterly; the Fleet, run by David A. DRAKE and Bill FAWCETT; Temps, The Weerde and Villains ed by members of Midnight Rose (Neil GAIMAN, Mary GENTLE, Roz KAVENEY and Alex Stewart); WILD CARDS, supervised by George R.R. MARTIN; and Time Machine, one of several controlled by Byron Preiss.In recent years the concept of the shared world has generated large masses of mediocre work, often written for hire, without joy, or taste, or thought. But that is not a universal rule. Some shared worlds begin in comradeship and continue to demonstrate the pleasures of sharing. The collegial shared world is a model of the sf community at play. Good shared worlds of this sort may, we can hope, in due course drive out the bad. [JC] SHARKEY, JACK Working name of US writer John Michael Sharkey (1931-1992) for all his sf, which he began publishing with "The Captain of his Soul" for Fantastic in 1959. He produced about 50 stories over the next 5 years or so, including several in the 1960s for Gal on ECOLOGY. His sf novels, The Secret Martians (1960 dos) and Ultimatum in 2050 A.D. (1963 AMZ as "The Programmed People"; 1965 dos), were enjoyable contributions to the genre. The protagonist in the first book is a thoroughly likable SUPERMAN; the second book is by contrast downbeat. After 1965 he was actively mainly as a playwright. [JC]Other work: The Addams Family * (1965), a tv tie. SHARON, ROSE [s] Judith MERRIL. SHARP, ROBERT [r] Jon J. DEEGAN. SCIENCE FICTION AGE US magazine; current; #1 Nov 1992; bimonthly; by March 1995 up to vol 3, no. 3, whole number 15; saddle-stapled; small- BEDSHEET; full-colour; slick. Published by Mark Hintz, ed Scott Edelman, from Herndon, Virginia.This was the most impressive professional sf magazine launched in the 1990s. With a cover price for two years of $2.95, it has settled to a respectable over-60,000 circulation: higher than FSF, lower than IASFM and ASF. The 1995 cover price is $3.95, with a 16-page insert with more fiction on non-slick paper announced. The magazine is not dominated by fiction. It has a good mix, most issues featuring an artwork portfolio, articles, reviews, columns and fiction, with many comparatively short pieces. Fiction authors have included Ben BOVA, David BRIN, Greg Costikyan, Paul Di Filippo, Geoffrey A. Landis, Barry N. MALZBERG, Robert REED, Mike RESNICK, Allen STEELE, Adam Troy-Castro and others. The fiction is not generally experimental, but by no means all conservative either. Not many of its stories have received award nominations, though a number of good stories have been published. However it is the liveliness of the layout, the art work, and the non-fiction pieces that probably accounts for most of SFA's success; the covers are mostly reprint artwork, a policy that allows for a high standard. Not only fiction is reviewed; coverage includes comics, sf art and movies. Reviewers and columnists have included Edelman, Terry BISSON, John BRUNNER, Robert SILVERBERG. A companion magazine (not sf), Realms of Fantasy, was distributed at the world sf convention with a cover date of Oct 1994, bimonthly, ed Shawna MCCARTHY; it, too, has been well received. [PN] SF MAGAZINES Sf stories were a popular and prominent feature of such general-fiction PULP MAGAZINES as The ARGOSY and The ALL-STORY during the first quarter of the 20th century. They were not, however, known as sf: if there were any need to differentiate them, the terms SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE or "different stories" might be used, but until the appearance of a magazine specifically devoted to sf there was no need of a label to describe the category. The first specialized English-language pulps with a leaning towards the fantastic were THRILL BOOK (1919) and WEIRD TALES (1923), but the editorial policy of both was aimed much more towards weird-occult fiction than towards sf.As specialized pulps became common it was inevitable that there would be one devoted in some fashion to sf; it fell to Hugo GERNSBACK actually to publish the first such magazine (if we discount the "Twentieth Century Number" [June 1890] of the OVERLAND MONTHLY). Gernsback's SCIENCE AND INVENTION consistently published much sf among its otherwise nonfiction articles, and in Aug 1923 had a special issue devoted to "scientific fiction"; in 1924 he solicited subscriptions for a magazine to be called Scientifiction. This did not materialize, but two years later (Apr 1926) #1 of AMAZING STORIES appeared. Gernsback's coinage, SCIENTIFICTION, reflected his particular interest in sf as a vehicle for prediction and for the teaching of science. In a magazine which featured both Jules VERNE and Edgar Rice BURROUGHS, it was a label that fitted the former's stories far more readily than the latter's.AMZ was somewhat different in appearance from the usual pulp magazines, which measured approximately 7in x 10in (20cm x 30cm) and were printed on poor-quality paper with rough, untrimmed edges. AMZ adopted the larger BEDSHEET size (approx 81/2in x 111/2in [24cm x 32.5cm]) and its pages were trimmed. The reason for this may have been to give an impression of greater respectability in order to have the magazine displayed on newsstands with the more prestigious "slick" magazines; certainly this was the result. The attempt at dignity was belied by the garishness of some of Frank R. PAUL's cover art, while the magazine's editorial matter had a stuffy, Victorian air. However, AMZ proved initially successful; according to Gernsback in the Sep 1928 issue, 150,000 copies were printed monthly, although "Very frequently we do not sell more than 125,000 copies". The same issue gives a clue to AMZ's readership; of 22 letters printed, 11 are avowedly from high-school pupils. It was through the letters column of AMZ and later magazines that sf FANDOM began.When Gernsback lost control of AMZ in 1929 through bankruptcy it remained in the hands of his assistant, the venerable T. O'Conor SLOANE, and changed little, while the new magazines which Gernsback then started - AIR WONDER STORIES and SCIENCE WONDER STORIES - adopted the same format and were very much the mixture as before. In fact, including AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY and Science Wonder Quarterly (later WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY), Gernsback started not just the first English-language sf magazine but the first five. It is not surprising that the limited Gernsbackian view of sf gained a strong hold. The emphasis on "science" in the category label (either "scientifiction" or "science fiction"), often quite inappropriately, is a legacy of this.The first challenge to Gernsback's view of sf magazine publishing came in 1930 with the appearance of Astounding Stories of Super-Science ( ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION). ASF belonged to the large Clayton magazine chain, and was unequivocally a pulp magazine. Its editor, Harry BATES, was unimpressed by Gernsback's achievements ("Packed with puerilities! Written by unimaginables!" was his later assessment of AMZ), and ASF's priorities were adventure first and science a long way second. Aficionados of AMZ were, in turn, unimpressed by ASF's vulgarity, and certainly the Clayton ASF produced vanishingly few stories of enduring quality. However, the same is true of its competitors.Air Wonder and Science Wonder soon amalgamated into WONDER STORIES; with minor exceptions (in 1931 MIRACLE SCIENCE AND FANTASY STORIES published 2 issues; in 1934 the semiprofessional MARVEL TALES began its short life), AMZ, ASF and Wonder Stories constituted the US sf-magazine field until 1939. Interestingly, not one of them finished the decade under the same ownership it had had at the beginning. ASF was initially the only sf magazine belonging to a pulp chain; when it was sold to another group, STREET & SMITH, in 1933, it was because of the collapse of the whole Clayton chain. The magazine itself had been quite successful, if undistinguished in content; under its new management and new editor F. Orlin TREMAINE it went from strength to strength, its popular success matched by a notable increase in quality. It had the advantage of paying considerably better than its sf competitors (one cent a word on acceptance, rather than half a cent a word on publication or later - "payment on lawsuit" as the saying had it). Even so, ASF's payment rates were only half what they had been in its Clayton days, and represented the lowest standard pulp rates; it was a question of the other sf magazines' paying very badly rather than ASF's paying particularly well. This had obvious repercussions on the quality of the writers prepared to contribute. Authors who could sell their work to Argosy for six cents a word were not going to favour the sf magazines with anything other than their rejects. More importantly, the prolific professional pulp writers, turning out hundreds of thousands of words each year in any and every category, never made the sf magazines their chief focus of attention. The adverse result of this was that the sf magazines published a great deal of material by writers ignorant even of the minimal standards of professionalism of the pulp hack (hence Bates's dismay with AMZ), but in the longer term the advantage was that the field was able to develop itself from within. Fans of the magazines believed, with justification, that they could do as well as the published writers. They tried; a proportion of them succeeded. Jack WILLIAMSON, an early example of such a writer, describes in The Early Williamson (1975) how he received little useful encouragement from Gernsback and Sloane; things changed when ASF under Tremaine became the first sf magazine with a dynamic editorial policy. It reaped dividends.While ASF prospered, its competitors floundered, losing their better writers and failing to replace them. By the end of 1933 both AMZ and Wonder Stories had adopted the standard pulp format. By the end of 1935 both had gone over to bimonthly publication (the same year that ASF was contemplating twice-monthly publication). In 1936 Wonder Stories was sold, reappearing after a short gap as THRILLING WONDER STORIES with a change of emphasis epitomized by the BEMS (bug-eyed monsters) on the cover of #1; AMZ followed suit in 1938.The failure of the sf magazines to establish themselves as a healthy pulp category in the 1930s is surprising in that, during that decade of the Great Depression, the pulps provided cheap entertainment and were thus generally popular. As a comparison, the far more specialized, peripherally associated field of "weird menace" pulps (as described in The Shudder Pulps [1975] by Robert Kenneth Jones) - i.e., magazines devoted entirely to stories in which apparently strange happenings turned out to have mundane explanations - was thriving, with such titles as Dime Mystery Magazine, Horror Stories, Terror Tales and Thrilling Mystery. The only sf magazine to establish itself on a regular monthly basis was also the only sf magazine with which Gernsback had never been associated, which suggests that Gernsback's conception of sf, and of sf-magazine publishing, failed to capture the audience it sought. The emphasis of the early sf magazines on MACHINES, as represented by Paul's cover art, may have alienated as many readers as it attracted.The first boom in sf-magazine publishing came towards the end of the 1930s. In 1938 MARVEL SCIENCE STORIES became the first fully professional new title since Miracle in 1931; it gained some notoriety by trying briefly to introduce to sf a little mild lasciviousness of the kind common in other pulps. In 1939 it was followed by a rush of new titles. AMZ and TWS had both proved successful enough under new management and with a more lively approach to give birth to companion magazines, FANTASTIC ADVENTURES and STARTLING STORIES respectively. John W. CAMPBELL Jr, who had become editor of ASF late in 1937, began in 1939 a fantasy companion, UNKNOWN, as well as printing during that year the first stories by Robert A. HEINLEIN, Theodore STURGEON and A.E. VAN VOGT, which heralded the start of ASF's greatest period of dominance. Other new magazines of 1939 were DYNAMIC SCIENCE STORIES, FUTURE FICTION, PLANET STORIES, SCIENCE FICTION, STRANGE STORIES and the reprint magazine FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES. In 1940 ASTONISHING STORIES, CAPTAIN FUTURE, COMET, SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY, SUPER SCIENCE STORIES and the reprint FANTASTIC NOVELS came along; in 1941 COSMIC STORIES and STIRRING SCIENCE STORIES made their appearance. However, this was not quite the flood it might seem. The economics of magazine publishing meant that when a bimonthly magazine was successful it was often better to start a companion title in the alternate months than to switch to monthly publication. In this way the magazines gained twice as much display space and twice as long a period on sale, while the publisher could hope for an increased share of the total market through product diversification. So Startling Stories was paired with TWS (although TWS went monthly in 1940-41), Marvel Science Stories with Dynamic Science Stories, Astonishing Stories with Super Science Stories, Cosmic Stories with Stirring Science Stories and Future Fiction with Science Fiction. Nevertheless, much more sf was needed each month, most of it paid for at minimal rates (if at all), and many young sf fans were able to gain invaluable early experience as writers or editors. Asimov, James BLISH, Damon KNIGHT, C.M. KORNBLUTH, Robert A.W. LOWNDES, Frederik POHL and Donald A. WOLLHEIM - all FUTURIANS - launched their careers in this period.Inevitably, the boom oversaturated the market: some of the new titles published only 2-3 issues. US involvement in WWII, with consequent paper shortages, took its toll of other titles. By the middle of 1944 all but 4 of the new titles had disappeared; nevertheless, these had all established themselves, and for the duration of the 1940s there were 7 regular sf magazines: AMZ, ASF, Fantastic Adventures, Planet Stories, Startling Stories, TWS and Famous Fantastic Mysteries, the latter still a reprint magazine. ASF was in a different class from the others in terms of both quality and appearance. In 1943 it changed to DIGEST size (approx 51/2in x 71/2in [14cm x 21.5cm]), anticipating the general trend of the 1950s. Discovering a serious adult readership for sf - and discovering and developing the writers to provide appropriate stories - it changed its appearance until it looked as different as possible from the sf pulps, often seeming deliberately to cultivate a drab look. In the early 1940s Startling Stories and TWS aimed themselves overtly at a juvenile audience - perhaps recognizing their readership for what it was (although later, under the editorship of Sam MERWIN Jr, the standard soared, until by 1948 Startling Stories represented the closest challenge to ASF). Their cover art, largely the work of Earle K. BERGEY, typified the drift away from the appeal of futuristic technology - scantily clad girls threatened by monstrous aliens promised more undemanding entertainment, and evidently provided the necessary sales appeal to sustain the enlarged market. Planet Stories was more garish still, the epitome of SPACE OPERA. The ZIFF-DAVIS magazines AMZ and Fantastic Adventures appeared crude, but prospered under the editorship of Raymond A. PALMER. AMZ, especially, grew huge (a peak of 274pp in 1942). Palmer showed a shrewd ability to tap the market for occultism and PSEUDO-SCIENCE, using in particular the allegedly factual stories of Richard S. SHAVER to attain for AMZ (he claimed) the highest circulation ever reached by an sf magazine.New magazines began to appear again in 1947-8, although at first they were either reprint-inspired ( AVON FANTASY READER, ARKHAM SAMPLER(which also published original stories), though in fact reprints only comprised about 25% of an issue, the revived FANTASTIC NOVELS) or of only SEMIPROZINE (i.e., semiprofessional) status ( FANTASY BOOK). They were followed in 1949 by A. MERRITT'S FANTASY MAGAZINE, the revived Super Science Stories and OTHER WORLDS SCIENCE STORIES. However, the significant development of the period was the appearance in 1949 of The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION , followed in 1950 by GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION. Both magazines originated in digest format, and from their inception were aimed at the adult audience which ASF had shown existed. Campbell's ASF was by this time showing evidence of stagnation, and both FSF, with its emphasis on literary standards, and Gal, which concentrated on the SOFT SCIENCES and SATIRE, appeared more sophisticated; they quickly established themselves alongside ASF, so that these three became the leading magazines - a situation which, generally speaking, continued until the late 1970s.New and revived magazines continued to appear in profusion, and to disappear almost as regularly. They included: Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories, IMAGINATION, Marvel, OUT OF THIS WORLD ADVENTURES, TWO COMPLETE SCIENCE-ADVENTURE BOOKS and WORLDS BEYOND in 1950; IF and Science Fiction Quarterly in 1951; DYNAMIC SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASTIC, SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES, SPACE SCIENCE FICTION and SPACE STORIES in 1952; BEYOND FANTASY FICTION, FANTASTIC UNIVERSE, FANTASY MAGAZINE, ORIGINAL SCIENCE FICTION STORIES, SCIENCE FICTION PLUS and UNIVERSE SCIENCE FICTION in 1953; IMAGINATIVE TALES in 1954; INFINITY SCIENCE FICTION in 1955; SATELLITE SCIENCE FICTION, SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES (the 2nd magazine of this title) and SUPER-SCIENCE FICTION in 1956; and DREAM WORLD, SATURN and VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION in 1957. From this plethora of new titles, the group of magazines ed Robert A.W. Lowndes - Future, Original and Science Fiction Quarterly - managed well for a number of years on tiny budgets; Fantastic Universe, Imagination and Imaginative Tales continued for several years; and Infinity, Satellite and Venture were notable among the shorter-lived magazines. Many other titles came and went after only 1-2 issues, and only Fantastic and If survived the end of the decade. Fantastic was a digest-size companion to AMZ and Fantastic Adventures. AMZ switched to digest size in 1953, at which point Fantastic Adventures ceased, although Fantastic can be considered as in effect a continuation. If would have been another 1950s casualty had not the title been sold in 1958 to Galaxy Publishing Corporation, which wanted a companion for Gal.The new magazines that succeeded were digests; of the 6 1940s pulps only AMZ (and, in a sense, Fantastic Adventures) survived the change in the publishing industry. The pulp-magazine business in general died in the early 1950s, a victim of increasing distribution problems and of the growing tv industry, which provided a more immediate cheap home entertainment. Weird Tales (which had pursued its own course through the 1930s-40s, publishing occasional sf) failed in 1954. Famous Fantastic Mysteries ceased in 1953; TWS, Startling Stories and Planet Stories survived until 1955, when they were among the last of all pulp magazines to die.In the UK, sf magazines had gained less of a foothold before WWII. The first was SCOOPS (1934), a short-lived BOYS' PAPER. This was followed in 1937 by TALES OF WONDER, the most notable early UK magazine, which survived until 1942. The first FANTASY appeared briefly in 1938-9. However, the post-WWII revival started earlier in the UK than in the USA, with the appearance of two magazines in 1946. Walter GILLINGS, editor of the prewar Tales of Wonder, now edited the second, equally short-lived FANTASY; NEW WORLDS, under John CARNELL, began in the same year. Both ceased publication in 1947, but NW was revived in 1949. In 1950 a companion magazine to NW, SCIENCE FANTASY, began under Gillings's editorship. Carnell took over from #3 and continued the magazines successfully through the decade, publishing the early work of such authors as Brian W. ALDISS, J.G. BALLARD and John BRUNNER. In 1958 SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES joined these two magazines; initially a reprint of the US title, it continued after its transatlantic parent had died, publishing original stories under Carnell's editorship. Other UK magazines of the 1950s were AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION and NEBULA SCIENCE FICTION; there were also a number of minor titles, such as VARGO STATTEN SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE.Six US magazines continued into the 1960s: AMZ, ASF (now retitled Analog), Fantastic, FSF, Gal and If. AMZ and Fantastic began the decade strongly under the editorship of Cele GOLDSMITH, who raised AMZ to a relative prominence which it had not enjoyed since the mid-1930s (although it was still of only secondary interest). In 1965 ZIFF-DAVIS sold AMZ and Fantastic, and they became reprint magazines, spawning numerous companion titles. Later they began to include original fiction once more, undergoing a resurgence with Ted WHITE's accession to the editorship in 1969. Analog, under new management, took on a more modern, glossy appearance - experimenting for a while with a handsome large format - and continued to lead the field in sales. FSF, established as the "quality" sf magazine, maintained its reputation through two changes of editor. Gal and If had a new editor, Frederik POHL, under whom they remained successful; in the mid-1960s If concentrated strongly on adventure sf with a popular success that showed itself in 3 consecutive HUGOS (otherwise shared between Analog and FSF). Later Gal and If came under the editorship of Ejler JAKOBSSON, who made an unconvincing, gimmicky attempt to "modernize" them. Chief among the few attempts to launch new magazines during the decade, although a great number of reprint titles appeared, were the short-lived GAMMA and another companion to Gal and If, WORLDS OF TOMORROW. The most significant event for the future of sf magazines was the publication in 1966 of the first volume of Damon Knight's ORBIT series of ORIGINAL ANTHOLOGIES. It was not the first such series - Pohl had edited STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES in the 1950s - but it came at a more significant time, when the magazines were suffering increasing problems in distribution and in many cases falling circulations, while the paperback book industry continued to grow strongly. Anthology series like Orbit - essentially magazines in book format, less frequent, and without some of the readers' departments - could obtain better distribution, would remain on sale for longer periods, could be more selective in their choice of material, and could offer better payment than the majority of sf magazines. In due course Orbit was followed by other anthology series - INFINITY, NEW DIMENSIONS, NOVA, QUARK and UNIVERSE - as well as many one-off original anthologies, most notably DANGEROUS VISIONS. It was widely felt that the traditional sf magazine had become an anachronism and in due course would be replaced by the paperback anthology, just as the digest magazines had supplanted the pulps. (In the event the magazines were not supplanted, but both the magazine market and the original-anthology market shrank radically in the 1980s.)In the UK it all happened rather differently. NW and Science Fantasy were taken over by a new publisher, Roberts & Vinter, in 1964, and Carnell left. Both magazines now adopted paperback format, although continuing to be marketed as magazines rather than books. Science Fantasy went through various changes of editor - and in 1966 of title, to Impulse and then SF Impulse - before folding in 1967. NW's new editor, Michael MOORCOCK, gradually transformed its outlook, making it more experimental and less bound to the conventions of GENRE SF; it became known as the standard-bearer of the NEW WAVE. In 1967 Moorcock, with Arts Council assistance, took over as publisher of the magazine, changing it to a large (approx 8in x 111/2in [A4]) format which allowed for more graphic adventurousness. NW encountered moments of controversy and subsequent distribution problems; it was banned by W.H. Smith & Sons, by far the largest retail newsagent chain in the UK. NW eventually ceased magazine publication in 1971, though various attempts to revive it in both book and magazine format have taken place sporadically since. Carnell, meanwhile, had begun NEW WRITINGS IN SF, a quarterly original anthology series which predated Orbit by two years. In 1969 the short-lived magazine VISION OF TOMORROW appeared.Between the mid-1970s and 1980 there were several major changes among the established US sf magazines. At the beginning of 1975 If was absorbed into Gal (which had acquired a new editor, Jim BAEN, in 1974). From the beginning of 1977, Gal began to miss issues; it managed to stagger on until Summer 1980. AMZ and Fantastic suffered slowly dwindling circulations; even produced with minimal staff and budget, they were only just viable. The last separate issue of Fantastic came in Oct 1980; thereafter only AMZ survived . . . by the skin of its teeth. FSF and Analog remained stable, Analog with by far the greater circulation and, from 1972, a new editor, Ben BOVA, who did much to revive it from the stagnation of the later years of Campbell's reign.In the UK NW reappeared as an irregular paperback series (1971-6), changing editors and publishers along the way. In 1974-6 SCIENCE FICTION MONTHLY was published, a poster-size magazine relying heavily on the appeal of pages of full-colour art. A projected successor, SF DIGEST, was aborted even before #1 had been distributed.Despite the predictions that original anthologies would replace magazines, in the USA the 1970s proved a more fertile period for new titles than the previous decade, while several of the anthology series failed. VERTEX, a glossy bedsheet-size magazine, was begun in 1973 and enjoyed success until forced by paper shortages to change to a newsprint format, dying soon after, in 1975. 1976 saw the launch of the short-lived ODYSSEY and the subscription-based semiprozine GALILEO (1976-80). It was at around this time that the semiprozine started making real progress; production costs could be kept low with a small (maybe one-person) operation, so compensating in part for distribution difficulties and consequent low sales. Few lasted long, although besides Galileo two- UNEARTH (8 issues 1977-9) and SHAYOL (7 issues 1977-85) - had an influence greater than their small-scale production might suggest. 1977 saw 3 further titles: in the UK VORTEX came and went; in the USA COSMOS SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY MAGAZINE and ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE were launched, both on apparently firm foundations. In the event the former lasted only 4 issues, but the latter steadily improved, to overtake all but Analog in terms of circulation, and to rival and then perhaps to supersede the big three (Analog, AMZ and FSF) in terms of quality. While IASFM was the major success story of the 1970s among the pure-sf magazines, a spectacular development took place in 1978 with the launch of a new science magazine in slick format, OMNI, by the publisher best known previously for the sex magazine Penthouse. Omni's circulation, at well over 800,000 in some years, was about 8 times higher than that of any sf magazine, so it was a matter of considerable significance when Omni decided at the outset to include some sf stories as part of its mix. This it did with great success: although it published only 20-40 stories annually, these were often of high quality. 1978 also saw the launch of AD ASTRA in the UK; it lasted until 1981. Also in 1978, Jim Baen at ACE BOOKS decided to get the best of both worlds by combining the sf magazine with the original-anthology series, launching DESTINIES, subtitled "The Paperback Magazine of Science Fiction and Speculative Fact", in book format.By the 1980s it seemed that the magazines were ultimately doomed: they could no longer compete with paperback publishers, video rentals and so on for the consumer's dollar. Through the decade the survivors faced steadily dropping circulations (with occasional fluctuations), and the founding of a new magazine could be seen as an act of insane courage. Nonetheless, new titles did appear. In the UK EXTRO lasted only 3 issues, but INTERZONE, likewise launched in 1982, proved quite another story. Founded by a collective (several members of which worked professionally in sf publishing as critics or editors), it began with the slightly morose air of yet another NW clone, with plenty of stories about ravaged societies. But bit by bit it picked up until, a decade later, now under the editorship and ownership of David PRINGLE, it rivals the very best US magazines in terms of quality, although the circulation is still small. In the USA Charles RYAN (who had edited Galileo) returned in 1986 with ABORIGINAL SCIENCE FICTION, which continues, though floundering, in the 1990s.Of possible future significance is the proliferation of desk-top published magazines produced by small groups of enthusiasts and aimed not at the mass market but at a continuing specialist readership. These magazines, partly a result of technological developments having brought home publishing within the financial reach of people who could once not have considered it, provide extremely valuable proving grounds for young writers who then may move elsewhere. Among the more distinguished such titles of the 1980s devoted to publishing fiction have been BACK BRAIN RECLUSE (UK), EIDOLON (Australia), JOURNAL WIRED (US), NEW PATHWAYS (US) and STRANGE PLASMA (US). Many more thus published are critical journals, such as SCIENCE FICTION EYE (US). Other SMALL PRESSES with considerably better financial backing have occasionally moved into the periodical field, notably PULPHOUSE PUBLISHING with first PULPHOUSE: THE HARDBACK MAGAZINE (1988-91) and then its successor, Pulphouse: A Weekly Magazine, which in late 1992 was continuing on a monthly basis. This, too, is aimed at a specialist market. In 1992 it was reported that Pulphouse was launching Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, ed Algis BUDRYS.By the end of 1991, the only English-language sf magazines with circulations over 20,000 were Aboriginal SF, Analog, IASFM, FSF and Omni, and only 3 of these topped 70,000: Analog, IASFM (both sold to Dell in 1992) and Omni. All have problems, even Omni. When seen in the context of magazine publication generally, sales figures of this order (apart from Omni's) are minuscule, and from the economic point of view sf has long since ceased to be of any importance at all in periodical publishing. These magazines, however, remain absolutely vital to sf's continued health, because it is primarily through them that short sf - which is in a remarkably healthy state at the beginning of the 1990s - remains alive at all. [MJE/PN]Further reading: The Introduction ( page xix) gives an explanation of which sf magazines are given individual entries. Early fantasy magazines and hero/villain pulp magazines with an sf content, such as The SPIDER , are separately listed under PULP MAGAZINES, as are general-fiction pulps like The BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE . Further information on the publishing of sf in periodical format can be found under BOYS' PAPERS, COMICS, DIME-NOVEL SF, FANZINES, JUVENILE SERIES, SEMIPROZINES and MAGAZINES; the latter entry lists all general-fiction slicks and tabloids which regularly published sf. An excellent reference on individual sf and fantasy magazines up to 1984 is Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines (1985) ed Marshall B. TYMN and Mike ASHLEY. SCIENCE FICTION MONTHLY 1. As Science-Fiction Monthly, Australian DIGEST-size magazine, 18 numbered undated issues, Aug 1955-Feb 1957, published by Atlas Publications, Melbourne; ed anon Michael Cannon. The fiction, reprinted from various US magazines, was mostly routine, but included some good work by Ray BRADBURY and others. The covers were reprinted from the same sources. A feature from #12 was Graham Stone's column of commentary, Science Fiction Scene.2. Name used by AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION in an early manifestation, May-Aug 1951.3. UK magazine, tabloid-size (11in x 16in [280mm x 405mm]). 28 monthly issues Feb 1974-May 1976 (2 vols of 12 issues, 1 vol of 4 issues), numbered, undated, published by New English Library; ed Feb 1974-Jan 1975 Pat Hornsey and Feb 1975-May 1976 Julie Davis. Born after the demise of NEW WORLDS, SFM - published by a paperback-book company which had a big sf list - was the only UK sf magazine of its time. It featured much full-page colour artwork, often in the form of pull-out posters, in an effort to find a teenage audience similar to that for pop-music magazines. Neither editor had previous experience of sf, and at first the quality of fiction was low, though it improved under Davis's editorship. From the beginning a feature was the number of well researched factual articles, review pages, news pages and interviews, with Mike ASHLEY and Walter GILLINGS regular contributors. Featured UK authors included Robert P. HOLDSTOCK, Bob SHAW, Brian M. STABLEFORD and Ian WATSON; reprints of well known US stories also appeared. The juvenile policy succeeded at first, but circulation dropped from above 100,000 to below 20,000. A plan to replace it with SF DIGEST was aborted. A spin-off book is The Best of Science Fiction Monthly (anth 1975) ed Janet Sacks. [PN/FHP] SCIENCE FICTION PLUS US BEDSHEET-size magazine. 7 issues Mar-Dec 1953, monthly for 4 months, then bimonthly, published by Hugo GERNSBACK's Gernsback Publications, with Sam MOSKOWITZ as managing ed. This was Gernsback's last venture in the sf field, and attempted to recover something of the flavour of his early pulps, including some Frank R. PAUL covers, but it was a financial failure. Notable stories - there were few - included 2 of Philip Jose FARMER's early novelettes, "The Biological Revolt" (Mar 1953) and "Strange Compulsion" (Oct 1953), and 2 stories by veteran Harry BATES: "Death of a Sensitive" (May 1953) and "The Triggered Dimension" (Dec 1953). The magazine was well produced, #1-#5 being on slick paper, but an appeal to nostalgia was not enough, and Gernsback retired hurt, complaining in his final editorial that fans had become too highbrow. [BS/PN] SCIENCE FICTION POETRY ASSOCIATION The SFPA was founded in 1978 by Suzette Haden ELGIN to promote a wide range of POETRY (from sf to horror) through the publication of a bimonthly journal, Star*Line, ed Robert FRAZIER, and the annual presentation of the Rhysling AWARD; Rhysling was the blind poet in "The Green Hills of Earth" (1947) by Robert A. HEINLEIN. [JC] SCIENCE FICTION PUBLICATIONS SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES. SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY US PULP MAGAZINE. Summer 1940-Spring 1943 (10 issues) and May 1951-Feb 1958 (28 issues), published by Columbia Publications. #1-#2 of the 1st series were ed Charles HORNIG, all others by Robert A.W. LOWNDES.In its 1st incarnation SFQ - a companion to SCIENCE FICTION and FUTURE FICTION - featured a complete novel in every issue, most reprints from varied sources; 5 were by Ray CUMMINGS. Many of the short stories were original, and the magazine, under Lowndes, was an important market for members of the FUTURIANS, notably C.M. KORNBLUTH under various pseudonyms. 2 undated reprint editions of the Summer 1940 and Winter 1941-2 issues were published in the UK in 1943. The 2nd version published a number of notable articles, including the series Science in Science Fiction by James BLISH (May 1951-May 1952) and "The Evolution of Science Fiction" by Thomas D. CLARESON (Aug 1953). Notable stories included Blish's "Common Time" (Aug 1953) and Isaac ASIMOV's "The Last Question" (Nov 1956). When SFQ died in 1956 it was the last of the sf pulp magazines, and an era had come to an end.Some stories from series 1 were reprinted in the UK as part of SCIENCE FICTION LIBRARY (a 1960 pocketbook series). Winter 1942 was reprinted as #15 of SWAN AMERICAN MAGAZINE in 1950. 10 numbered undated issues of series 2 were published by Thorpe & Porter in the UK during 1952-5. [BS/PN] SFRA NEWSLETTER US DIGEST-format magazine, the official newsletter, mostly monthly, of the SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION; founded 1971, current, 215 issues to Jan/Feb 1995, ed Fred Lerner (1971-4), Beverly Friend (1974-8), Roald Tweet (1978-81), Elizabeth Anne Hull (1981-4), Richard W. Miller (1984-7), Robert A. Collins (1987-9), Betsy Harfst (1989-92), Daryl F. MALLETT (1993-94) and Amy Sisson (1994- ). Aside from news of specific interest to SFRA's mostly academic members, the newsletter has published much material of general interest, including PILGRIM-AWARD speeches, but is most obviously of use for its book reviews, which, though very intermittent to Aug 1987, became a regular feature from the Sep 1987 issue (#151) onward. Books about sf and fantasy are covered very fully and well; reviews of sf are variable in quality, but still useful. Collected reviews from SFRAN form a substantial part of those published in SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY BOOK REVIEW ANNUAL (begun 1988), whose editors, Robert A. Collins and Robert Latham, have been stalwarts of SFRAN. Other important SFRAN contributors have been Neil BARRON and Michael Klossner. From #194, Jan/Feb 1992, the magazine changed its name to SFRA Review, which better describes its function. [PN] SFRA REVIEW SFRA NEWSLETTER. SF REPRISE At the time when both magazines were being published by Roberts & Vinter, some unsold issues of NEW WORLDS and SCIENCE FANTASY were bound up in 2s and 3s and sold as SF Reprise, which had 6 numbers: 4 in 1966, 2 in 1967. #1, #2 and #5 were NW; #3, #4 and #6 were Science Fantasy. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION This group was formed in October 1970 to aid and encourage sf scholarship, especially in the USA and Canada. The first chairman was Thomas D. CLARESON. The organization has acted as a central liaison between academics teaching sf in the USA, though academic affiliation is not a requirement for membership, which can be active, honorary, institutional, student or emeritus. Members receive SFRA NEWSLETTER (retitled SFRA Review in 1992) 10 times a year; the annual SFRA Directory; and the critical journals EXTRAPOLATION and SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES. 1977 membership was 330, 1991 membership was 313 - of whom over 50 came from outside the USA - so it has remained much the same size. The SFRA holds an annual conference, usually in June, at which papers are delivered and its annual PILGRIM AWARD for services to sf scholarship and/or criticism is announced. Since 1990 the SFRA has given a second annual award, the Pioneer Award, for best critical essay of the year, the first 2 being won by Veronica Hollinger (1990) and H. Bruce FRANKLIN (1991). Although SFRA was originally envisaged as focusing primarily on sf, it has for some time announced itself as "the oldest professional association for the study of science fiction, fantasy and horror/Gothic literature and film, and utopian studies". [PN]See also: SF IN THE CLASSROOM. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW Variant title of 2 FANZINES - The ALIEN CRITIC and PSYCHOTIC - ed Richard E. GEIS. [PN] SF SERIES SERIES. SCIENCE FICTION STORIES FUTURE FICTION (for the 1943 magazine); The ORIGINAL SCIENCE FICTION STORIES (for the 1953-5 magazine). SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES Academic journal, published both from the USA and from Canada, founded Spring 1973, current, 65 issues to Mar 1995, 3 issues a year. S-FS was co-edited from the outset by R.D. MULLEN and Darko SUVIN, with Mullen also acting as publisher; the magazine was first published from Indiana State University, where Mullen taught. He left at the end of 1978, and in 1979 with #17 the magazine moved to McGill University in Montreal, where it was ed Suvin, Marc Angenot and Robert M. PHILMUS, joined by Charles Elkins with #20 (1980). Suvin's last issue was #22 (1980) and Angenot's #25 (1982). Philmus and Elkins remained in charge until #52, Nov 1990. With #53, 1991, Mullen resumed the editorship along with Philmus, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Arthur B. Evans and Veronica Hollinger, Philmus dropping out with #54. S-FS returned to Indiana with #56 (1992), now published at DePauw University.S-FS is the second youngest of the 4 academic journals about sf ( EXTRAPOLATION and FOUNDATION are older, JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS is younger). It does not normally review contemporary sf, though it runs excellent reviews of books about sf. Over the years it has probably published more good, substantial articles on sf than any of its competitors, being especially strong on European sf, on debate about the nature of the genre, on UTOPIAS, on FEMINISM and on POSTMODERNISM, but very patchy on GENRE SF. There have been 2 special issues on Philip K. DICK, 1 on Ursula K. LE GUIN, and sporadic articles on authors like Gregory BENFORD, Pamela SARGENT and William GIBSON, but these are in a minority, so that sometimes S-FS gives the impression of looking anywhere rather than at the heart of its subject. Unusually for a US journal, some of its critical material is Marxist-oriented. S-FS is a responsible, intellectually robust journal which, while it reflects some of the excesses of academic criticism generally (e.g., too much critical jargon), also reflects its strengths. [PN] SCIENCE FICTION THEATRE US tv series (1955-7). ZIV/WRCA-TV. Prod Ivan Tors. Hosted by Truman Bradley. Technical adviser Dr Maxwell Smith. 3 seasons, 78 25min episodes. First 2 seasons b/w, last season colour.This anthology series, presenting a different sf play each week, went out of its way to avoid the sensationalism so prevalent in sf films of the period. The result was prosaic. In 1956 the producer said, revealingly: "One of the traps into which such a series may fall is complete dependence on science for interest. This is avoided at the story conference by excluding the scientists at the start and depending on the writers to come up with a story with human interest . . . After the story is developed it is up to . . . the research people to suggest some scientific fact on which the story can be hung."Each episode began with dignified Truman Bradley sitting at a desk covered with "scientific" objects (some of which were spinning, or had flashing lights) and introducing the audience to the theme of the story. A typical episode from 1955 involves a hurricane moving towards Miami. A young meteorologist and his wife sit worrying about their son, who is on a camping trip. But, just as the hurricane reaches the shore, a high-pressure area pushes it back again. The sf element in the story consists of the discovery that the hurricane was created by a meteor landing in the sea. [JB] SCIENCE FICTION TIMES FANTASY TIMES; GERMANY; HUGO. SFWA SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA. SFWA BULLETIN A journal, published quarterly, which serves as the official public voice of the former SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA (since early 1992 the journal's title has been SFFWA Bulletin). The SFWAB was founded in 1965 and ed 1965-7 by Damon KNIGHT, as part of his activities in founding the SFWA itself. Subsequent editors included Terry CARR (1967-8), Alexei PANSHIN (1968-9), Barry N. MALZBERG (1969-70), George ZEBROWSKI (1970-75), Stephen GOLDIN (1975-7), John F. CARR (1978-80), Richard Kearns (1981-2), Pamela SARGENT with Zebrowski (1983-91), and Daniel Hatch (1991-current). The SFWAB - unlike its sister journal, SFWA FORUM, which is restricted to active members - sedulously eschews controversial material. Though at times given over to projects of wider interest (like John F. Carr's 1979 special issue devoted to "Science-Fiction Future Histories") or articles on contract law as it applies to writers, for much of the year it concentrates on matters like the NEBULA. [JC] SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA A professional guild created to inform sf writers on matters of professional interest, to promote their professional welfare, and to help them deal effectively with publishers, agents, editors and anthologists; in 1992 (see below) renamed the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFFWA). The initial impulse for the SFWA came through discussions and activities at the MILFORD SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS' CONFERENCES, founded by Damon KNIGHT and others; in 1965, feeling the need for a formal body to represent sf writers, Knight founded the SFWA and served as its first president (1965-7). Later presidents have been Robert SILVERBERG (1967-8), Alan E. NOURSE (1968-9), Gordon R. DICKSON (1969-71), James E. GUNN (1971-2), Poul ANDERSON (1972-3), Jerry POURNELLE (1973-4), Frederik POHL (1974-6), Andrew J. OFFUTT (1976-8). Jack WILLIAMSON (1978-80), Norman SPINRAD (1980-82), Marta RANDALL (1982-4; 1st woman president), Charles SHEFFIELD (1984-6), Jane YOLEN (1986-8), Greg BEAR (1988-90), Ben BOVA (1990-92) and Joe HALDEMAN (1992-current). Full or "active" membership is restricted to professional writers - defined as writers who have sold a minimum of 3 short stories or 1 full-length book of fiction (collaborations are acceptable) to a "professional" US market, which excludes journals of less than 12,000 circulation (an exclusion which nullifies work in almost any literary journal). The qualification is one-off; a writer, once he or she has become a member, need never re-qualify.In addition to its guild activities, the SFWA sponsors the annual NEBULA Awards and the annual anthologies resulting from them. There are, in addition, 2 SFWA journals: The Bulletin of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America ( SFWA BULLETIN), which is available to the public; and SFWA FORUM, whose circulation is restricted to active members (and some other categories of membership). As well as the Nebula anthologies, the SFWA has been responsible for the SFWA Handbook, a writer's guide which has gone through various editions and formats, the most recent (and fullest) incarnation being Science Fiction Writers of America Handbook: The Professional Writer's Guide to Writing Professionally (anth 1990) ed Kristine Kathryn RUSCH and Dean Wesley SMITH, which is packed with information (but lacks an index).The SFWA membership has been given to polemics, and resignations have been moderately commonplace. One major rift occurred in 1976 when Stanislaw LEM's honorary membership was cancelled. Another controversy erupted in 1992, a US election year, when outgoing president Bova unilaterally invited the conservative Republican Newt Gingrich to give the keynote address at the annual Nebula banquet. All the same, although the SFWA has suffered public accusations of parochialism, and although much of its energies in recent years seems to have been devoted to increasingly arcane attempts to revise the already labyrinthine rules governing the Nebula Awards, it has played an important role in improving the conditions of the sf writer's life - by, for example, negotiating with publishers to improve the wording of contracts.The 1980s witnessed a de facto but ex jure increase in the proportion of fantasy and horror writers in the SFWA. At the beginning of 1992 a name change was agreed, and the SFWA became the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFFWA. [PN/JC]See also: PARANOIA. SFWA FORUM Privy journal of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA (since early 1992 the journal's name has been SFFWA Forum). One of the few publications - perhaps the only one - in the sf world restricted to a designated readership, the SFWAF is circulated only to "active" SFWA members (the term "active" being defined by the rules of that guild). Where the SFWA BULLETIN, which is the official public journal of the SFWA, maintains a strict public-relations approach to material, SFWAF allows (reportedly) unfettered expressions of opinion - which are (reportedly) not always exhilarating. [JC] SHASTA PUBLISHERS Chicago-based US specialist publisher founded by T.E. DIKTY, Erle Melvin Korshak and Mark Reinsberg (who soon dropped out), originally to publish books about fantasy and sf. Its first title was E.F. BLEILER's The Checklist of Fantastic Literature (1948). The company soon expanded into fiction publishing with such titles as John W. CAMPBELL Jr's Who Goes There? (coll 1948), L. Sprague DE CAMP's The Wheels of If (coll 1949) and L. Ron HUBBARD's Slaves of Sleep (1948); it turned down a Hubbard book on DIANETICS. All these early titles featured jackets by Hannes BOK. Subsequent publications include the first 3 vols of Robert A. HEINLEIN's Future History series and Alfred BESTER's THE DEMOLISHED MAN (1953). In 1953 Shasta sponsored a novel competition in conjunction with the paperback publisher Pocket Books. This was won by Philip Jose FARMER with I Owe for the Flesh. By this time the company was in financial difficulties; the book was never published and the prize money never paid. (The novel later formed the basis of Farmer's Riverworld series.) Shasta produced one or two further titles, then expired in 1957. [MJE]See also: SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS. SHATNER, WILLIAM (1931- ) Canadian actor and writer, long resident in the USA, where he gained fame as Captain Kirk in the STAR TREK tv series, going on to star in all the film sequels; he also directed the disappointing STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989), about which he wrote, with Lisbeth Shatner, The Captain's Log: William Shatner's Personal Account of the Making of Star Trek V, the Final Frontier (1989). Other books incorporating public memories include Star Trek Memories (1993) with Chris Kreski and Star Trek Movies Memories (1994), also with Kreski. In the preface to his first sf novel, TekWar (1989) - set in a 22nd-century Los Angeles where crime is rife, and where a wise-mouth robot resignedly helps a lanky protagonist solve a mystery - WS acknowledges the assistance of Ron GOULART, who is otherwise uncredited as co-author. Teklords (1991),TekLab (1991), Tek Vengeance (1993), Tek Secret (1993) and Tek Power (1994), all also with Goulart (uncredited), soon followed. Believe Me (1992) with Michael Tobias is associational, with tinges of the occult. [JC] SHAVER, RICHARD S(HARPE) (1907-1975) US writer, author of some sf stories (some under the house name Paul LOHRMAN) but now remembered almost exclusively for his hoax-like sequence of Shaver Mystery stories, presented as based on fact, published in Raymond A. PALMER's AMAZING STORIES 1945-7, beginning with "I Remember Lemuria" in March 1945. It brought over 2500 letters in response, and the sequence boosted AMZ's circulation though at the same time alienating many fans; the June 1947 AMZ was an all-Shaver issue. RS continued to release the same sort of material briefly in Other Worlds (still as Palmer's protege), and enjoyed a further comeback in Palmer's small-circulation The HIDDEN WORLD in 1961. A selection of the "articles" was published as I Remember Lemuria & The Return of Sathanas (coll 1948). Essentially the "articles" comprise a series of messages from an underground world and, VON DANIKEN-like, establish a new, conspiracy-oriented, highly lurid history and cosmology in which humans (it transpires) have long been manipulated by "deros" (detrimental robots) through various ESP powers. Until the end of his life RS maintained that he genuinely believed what he wrote. [JC/PN] See also: HOLLOW EARTH; PARANOIA; PSEUDO-SCIENCE; SF MAGAZINES. SHAW, BARCLAY (1949- ) US illustrator; attended the New England School of Art and Design. BS's earliest magazine cover was for FSF in 1979 (followed by 8 more in the next two years); also in 1979 he did one for CINEFANTASTIQUE. By 1980 he was doing book covers; and in 1982 a series of reissues of Harlan ELLISON books, with covers by BS at Ellison's request, began to appear. Another interesting series of covers was for some of the Robert A. HEINLEIN reissues of the late 1980s. BS's ILLUSTRATION, indebted to European Surrealists and painters of the grotesque, is sophisticated: often surreal and sometimes a touch decadent, typically shadowy with some areas or objects glowing. [PN] SHAW, BOB Working name of Northern Irish writer Robert Shaw (1931- ), in mainland UK from 1973. He worked in structural engineering until the age of 27, then aircraft design, then industrial public relations and journalism, becoming a full-time author in 1975. BS was early involved in sf, initially as a fan, his first book being, with Walt Willis (1919- ), The Enchanted Duplicator (1954 chap), an allegory of fan and FANZINE activities; he received HUGOS in 1979 and 1980 for his fan writing. He published his first story, "Aspect", with Nebula Science Fiction in 1954, and during the mid-1950s contributed several more stories to that magazine and one to Authentic before ceasing to write for some years. After a "come-back" story - ". . . And Isles Where Good Men Lie" (1965) - he published "Light of Other Days" (1966 ASF), which gained a NEBULA nomination and established his reputation as a writer of remarkable ingenuity. Built around the intriguing concept of "slow glass", through which light can take years to travel - thus allowing people to view scenes from the past - this story remains BS's best known. He would later incorporate it, together with two sequels, into the novel Other Days, Other Eyes (fixup 1972; expurgated 1974).His first novel was Night Walk (1967 US), a fast-moving chase story. A man who has been blinded and condemned to a penal colony on a far planet invents a device that enables him to see through other people's (and animals') eyes and thus manages to escape. The Two-Timers (1968 US), a well written tale of PARALLEL WORLDS, doppelgangers and murder, demonstrates BS's ability to handle characterization and, in particular, his talent for realistic dialogue. In The Palace of Eternity (1969 US) he still more impressively controls a wide canvas featuring interstellar warfare, the environmental degradation of an Edenic planet, and human transcendence; the final section of the novel, where the hero finds himself reincarnated as an "Egon", or soul-like entity, displeased some critics, though it is in fact an effective handling of a traditional sf displacement of ideas from METAPHYSICS or RELIGION. This intelligent reworking of well worn sf theses was from the first BS's forte, as was demonstrated in his next novel, One Million Tomorrows (1970 US), an IMMORTALITY tale whose twist lies in the fact that the option of eternal youth entails sexual impotence.All BS's early books - which include also Shadow of Heaven (1969 US; cut 1970 UK; rev vt The Shadow of Heaven 1991 UK) and Ground Zero Man (1971 US; rev vt The Peace Machine 1985 UK) - were published first (and sometimes solely) in the USA; and their efficient anonymity of venue may result from an attempt to appeal to a transatlantic audience. Only slowly did BS come to write tales whose venue and protagonists were distinctly UK in feel; and it could be argued that his best work is his most general. Orbitsville (1975) - along with its rather less effective sequels, Orbitsville Departure (1983) and Orbitsville Judgement (1990)-must stand, after Other Days, Other Eyes, as his finest early inspiration. Like Larry NIVEN's RINGWORLD (1970) and Arthur C. CLARKE's RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA (1973), the Orbitsville books centre on the discovery of - and later developments within - a vast alien artefact in space (a BIG DUMB OBJECT, in fact), in this case a DYSON SPHERE. Within the living-space provided by the inner surface of this artificial shell - billions of times the surface area of the Earth - BS spins an exciting story of political intrigue and exploration, which in later volumes develops, perhaps rather impatiently, into a heavily plotted move into another universe entirely. Orbitsville gained a 1976 BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD.A Wreath of Stars (1976) may be BS's most original, and perhaps his finest, singleton. A rogue star, composed entirely of antineutrinos, approaches the Earth. It passes nearby with no immediately discernible effect. However, it is soon discovered that an antineutrino "Earth" exists within our planet, and its orbit has been seriously disturbed by the passage of the star. This is an ingenious, almost a poetic, idea, to which the plot only just fails to do full justice. Other books followed quickly: the overcomplicated Medusa's Children (1977); Who Goes Here? (1977), and its sequel, Warren Peace (1993), jeux d'esprit akin to Harry HARRISON's Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965); Ship of Strangers (fixup 1978), in which the crew of the Stellar Survey Ship Sarafand, after some routine adventures, confront a cosmological issue; Vertigo (1978; with "Dark Icarus" added as prologue, exp vt Terminal Velocity 1991), an effective policier set in a world transformed by ANTIGRAVITY devices; and Dagger of the Mind (1979) and The Ceres Solution (1981), in both of which BS's ingenuity declined, for a period, into something close to jumble. He had meanwhile been writing short stories - his collections include Tomorrow Lies in Ambush (coll 1973; with 2 stories added, rev 1973 US), Cosmic Kaleidoscope (coll 1976; with 1 story omitted and 2 added, rev 1977 US), A Better Mantrap (coll 1982), Between Two Worlds (coll 1986 dos US) and Dark Night in Toyland (coll 1989) - which again demonstrate his professional skills but tend to lack a sense of personal involvement.However, with the Ragged Astronauts sequence - THE RAGGED ASTRONAUTS (1986), The Wooden Spaceships (1988) and The Fugitive Worlds (1989) - BS returned to his very best and most inventive form, describing with joyful exactness the sensation of emigrating, via hot-air BALLOON, up the hourglass funnel of atmosphere that connects two planets which orbit each other. Later volumes lost some of the freshness and elation of the first, but the series as a whole emphasizes BS's genuine stature in the genre as an entertainer who rarely fails to thrill the mind's eye with a new prospect. At his best, BS has been a lover of the worlds of sf. [DP/JC]Other works: The Best of the Bushel (coll 1979 chap) and The Eastercon Speeches (coll 1979 chap), both humorous fan writing, and both assembled with additional material as A Load of Old BoSh (coll 1995 chap); Galactic Tours: Thomas Cook Out of This World Vacations (1981 US) with David HARDY; Courageous New Planet (1981 chap); Serious Scientific Talks (coll 1984 chap), humorous fan writing; Fire Pattern (1984); Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle (coll 1986 dos US); Killer Planet (1989), juvenile sf; How to Write Science Fiction (1993).About the author: Bob Shaw (anth 1981 chap) ed Paul Kincaid and Geoff Rippington; Bob Shaw, Artist at Ground Zero (last rev 1989 chap) by Gordon BENSON Jr, Chris Nelson and Phil STEPHENSEN-PAYNE.See also: ALTERNATE WORLDS; ARTS; ASTEROIDS; COMICS; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; COSMOLOGY; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; ESCHATOLOGY; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; FASTER THAN LIGHT; GRAVITY; HUMOUR; IMAGINARY SCIENCE; MATTER TRANSMISSION; MOON; PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS; PERCEPTION; PHYSICS; SATIRE; SCIENTIFIC ERRORS; SCIENTISTS; SPACE FLIGHT; TIME PARADOXES; UNDER THE SEA. SHAW, BRIAN House name used by CURTIS WARREN on 4 novels by 4 different authors: Argentis (1952) by E.C. TUBB, Ships of Vero (1952) by David O'BRIEN, Z Formation (1953) by John Russell FEARN (signing himself Bryan Shaw) and Lost World (1953) by Brian HOLLOWAY. All are adventure sf. [PN/JC] SHAW, DAVID David Arthur GRIFFITHS. SHAW, FREDERICK L(INCOLN) (1928-1978) US writer in whose routine sf novel, Envoy to the Dog Star (1967 dos), a dog's brain travels to Sirius. [JC] SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD (1856-1950) Irish-born writer of novels, plays and much controversial nonfiction; Nobel Literature Prize 1925. He lived most of his life in England, where he remained ferociously active over a writing career lasting 70 years. Some of his early plays - like Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy (1903) and Androcles and the Lion (performed 1913; as title of omni 1916) - contain fantasy elements, though deployed with a cool Shavian sanity which repudiates any sense of escapism. Press Cuttings (1909 chap), a play about women's rights set in the NEAR FUTURE, was close to sf, and the destruction of the old world order in Heartbreak House (as title of omni 1919) seemed backward-looking only because of the play's five-year wait for publication. GBS's first genuine sf play was Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921 US; rev 1921 UK and several times further to 1945 UK), a 5-part depiction of mankind's EVOLUTION from the time of Genesis into the FAR FUTURE, when people have become long-lived and, by AD31,920, are on the verge of suffering corporeal transcendence into disembodied thought-entities. Hereafter GBS's plays - which have only posthumously escaped the charge that their dissolution of realist conventions simply demonstrated the senility of their author - increasingly utilized sf or fantasy modes to make a series of remarkably bleak utterances about Homo sapiens and about the chances of the species ever doing well. The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza (first English-language publication 1930), set in the UK near the end of the century after a Channel Tunnel has been built, ironically posits monarchism as an answer to the power of great corporations. Too True to be Good: A Political Extravaganza (performed 1932) and On the Rocks: A Political Comedy (performed 1933) - both assembled in Too True to be Good, Village Wooing & On the Rocks (omni 1934) - more scathingly and far-rangingly explore similar material, as do The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles: A Vision of Judgment (1935) and Geneva: A Fancied Page of History (1939). Buoyant Billions (1948 Switzerland; with Farfetched Fables as omni 1950) presents some terminal UTOPIAN thoughts in the guise of fantasy.None of GBS's 19th-century novels are of genre interest, but The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God (1932 chap) is fantasy, and some of the items assembled in Short Stories (coll 1932) are sf. Both books were assembled with revisions as Short Stories, Scraps and Shavings (omni 1934); The Black Girl in Search of God, and Some Lesser Tales (coll 1946) also assembles this part of his oeuvre.It should be noted that many of GBS's plays were "published" for the use of actors long before their official release, and that the official release was generally revised; moreover, during the last half century of his life - financial independence allowing him to subsidize this activity - GBS was in the habit of making constant unsignalled revisions to the extremely numerous reprints of his work. We have not attempted to trace these changes. [JC]See also: ADAM AND EVE; IMMORTALITY; SUPERMAN; THEATRE. SHAW, LARRY T. Working name of US writer and editor Lawrence Taylor Shaw (1924-1985), an active sf fan from the early 1940s and a member of the FUTURIANS; married to Lee HOFFMAN 1956-9. Beginning with "Secret Weapon" for Fantasy Book in 1948 as by Terry Thor, he published some sf stories into the early 1950s, but was primarily known for his editorial work. He was associate editor of IF May 1953-Mar 1954. In 1955 he became editor of INFINITY SCIENCE FICTION, which grew to be one of the leading sf magazines of its period; and he later started a companion title, SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES. When both magazines failed, in 1958, he turned to editing in other fields. He came back to sf as editor for Lancer Books (1963-8), where he built a successful sf line and edited the anthologies Great Science Fiction Adventures (anth 1964) and Terror! (anth 1966). He subsequently worked for Dell Books (1968-9) and American Art Enterprises (1969-75), founding Major Books for the firm. In 1975 he began to work as a literary agent, but this new career was hampered by poor health. He received a Special HUGO in 1984. [MJE/JC] SHAWN, FRANK S. Ron GOULART. SHAYOL US SEMIPROZINE, 7 issues, irregular, Nov 1977-1985, small- BEDSHEET slick format, published by Flight Unlimited, Kansas City; ed Pat CADIGAN. This was brought out by a partnership of Arnold Fenner (publisher) and Cadigan, now better known as a writer, whose first story, "Death from Exposure", was published in #2 (1978) and went on to win a Balrog AWARD. S was a development from Fenner's previous publication, Chacal, which had been largely devoted to SWORD AND SORCERY. With good covers, and excellent design and interior artwork - including work by Stephen FABIAN - S seemed almost created to prove a point about magazines not having to look tacky. It showcased good fiction, too, mixing sf and fantasy, from Michael BISHOP, C.J. CHERRYH, Charles L. GRANT, Tanith LEE, Tom REAMY, Lisa TUTTLE, Howard WALDROP and others. It was an astonishingly adept performance, the most spectacular (though by no means the most regular) sf/fantasy magazine of its era, though as a SMALL-PRESS publication it was not indexed in the N.E.S.F.A. magazine indexes. Having proved they could do it, Cadigan and Fenner simply stopped. [PN] SHEA, CORNELIUS (1863-1920) US writer of dime novels ( DIME-NOVEL SF), prolific in many categories but best remembered for marvel stories using a fairly consistent "mythology" of dwarfs, subterranean eruptions, and stage illusion masquerading as supernatural magic. Van Vincent's Vow (1892) offers African adventures, sex-exploiting Amazons, and a socialist UTOPIA founded by Egyptians who possess superscience. The Enchanted Diamond (1894) is a lost-race tale ( LOST WORLDS) featuring a passage underground between Alaska and Asia and a magical monarch. The Hidden Island (1898) describes a vicious She-like femme fatale ( H. Rider HAGGARD), who claims to be of Jovian descent, and a sinking island. In The Wonderful Electric Man (1899), to prevent OVERPOPULATION couples are put to death after the birth of their first child; if they have no children, they are put to death anyway. Probably by CS, The Enchanted Emerald (1902) as by P.T. Raymond describes an emerald with seemingly magical powers, plus lost civilizations and another She-like queen in Africa. CS's work was widely reprinted, often pseudonymously as "By the Author of 'The Wreck of the Glaucus'". [EFB] SHEA, MICHAEL 1. Michael (Sinclair MacAuslan) Shea (1938- ) UK writer, press secretary to the Queen for a decade from 1978. AsMichael Sinclair he wrote a NEAR-FUTURE thriller, The Dollar Covenant (1973); and as MS Tomorrow's Men (1982), a DYSTOPIAN tale of the near-future UK in the grip of private armies - the USA soon takes a hand in straightening things out.2. (1946- ) US writer, mostly of FANTASY; most of his few sf stories border on horror. His books, which are both witty and disquieting, include A Quest for Simbilis (1974) - derived, with permission, from Jack VANCE's The Eyes of the Overworld (1966) - plus Nifft the Lean (coll of linked stories 1982) and In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985), both showing Vance's influence less explicitly. Other books include The Color out of Time (1984), a sequel to H.P. LOVECRAFT's The Colour out of Space (1927), Fat Face (1987 chap),Polyphemus (coll 1987) - which contains several deft sf tales, including the title story and the horrific "The Autopsy" (1980) about possession by an alien parasite. [JC] SHEA, ROBERT (JOSEPH) (1933-1994) US writer and senior editor of Playboy magazine best known for collaborating with Robert Anton WILSON on the Illuminatus! trilogy - The Eye in the Pyramid (1975), The Golden Apple (1975) and Leviathan (1975), all assembled as The Illuminatus Trilogy (omni 1984) - in which detective, FANTASY and sf components combine in the extremely complex tale of a vast conspiracy on the part of the Illuminati, historically a late-18th-century German association of freethinkers but here rendered into the gods of H.P. LOVECRAFT's Cthulhu Mythos (among other incarnations). The Illuminati plan, more or less, to destroy the world in their search for power; almost everything of meaning in the contemporary world turns out somehow to signify their malign omnipresence. The influence of Thomas PYNCHON's The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) is evident though, where the PARANOIA of that novel was presented with haunting conviction, the Illuminatus! books, simultaneously deadpan and hysterical, treat conspiracy as a game. RS subsequently wrote solo contributions (see Wilson's entry for his own continuations): The Saracen: Land of the Infidel (1989) and The Saracen: The Holy War (1989) provide background to the main enterprise. Time of the Dragons (1981) and Last of the Zinja (1981), both assembled as Shike (omni 1992), are historical novels with fantasy elements. Shaman (1991) is a fantasy. [JC]See also: HUMOUR; LIBERTARIAN SF; MUSIC; THEATRE. SHECKLEY, ROBERT (1928- ) US writer, born and educated in New York, where he set some of his fiction, publishing his first story, "Final Examination", for Imagination in 1952. RS's career falls into 3 periods: the 1950s, the 1960s, and afterwards. In the first period he produced short fiction prolifically for several years in various magazines, though his supple, witty, talkative, well crafted work was especially suited to GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, where much of it appeared. This work remains, perhaps, his best known. In the second period he wrote several novels which combined "zany" plots, metaphysical speculation and comic SATIRE. In the third period he has rested. The Collected Short Stories of Robert Sheckley (coll in 5 vols 1991), though incomplete, gives a good view of the entire career.RS's first collection, UNTOUCHED BY HUMAN HANDS (coll 1954; with differing contents 1955 UK), is one of the finest debut volumes ever published in the field, and contains several tales which have remained famous, including "The Monsters" (1953), the title story (1952), and the superb "Specialist" (1953) which, with an energy and adroitness typical of his early work, posits a Galaxy inhabited by a variety of cooperating races who can merge their specialized functions to become, literally, SPACESHIPS. The story describes the search for a new Pusher, a being capable of shoving the ship to FASTER-THAN-LIGHT velocities - unsurprisingly for the 1950s, Homo sapiens turns out to be a Pusher species. Also in the collection is "Seventh Victim" (1953), much later filmed as La DECIMA VITTIMA (1965), in turn novelized by RS as The Tenth Victim * (1966); see below for its feeble continuation into a series. Further successful collections followed swiftly: Citizen in Space (coll 1955), Pilgrimage to Earth (coll 1957), Notions: Unlimited (coll 1960), Store of Infinity (coll 1960) and Shards of Space (coll 1962). Later compilations include The Robert Sheckley Omnibus (coll 1973 UK) ed Robert CONQUEST and Is THAT What People Do?: The Selected Short Stories (coll 1984). RS's stories are unfailingly elegant and literate; their mordant humour and sudden plot reversals separate them from the mass of magazine sf stories of the time, for the wit and surprises usually function to make serious points about the calamitous aspects of life in the later 20th century. At the same time, RS clearly found it worthwhile during these early years to express the corrosive pessimism of his wit within the storytelling conventions of sf, to dress his nihilism in sheep's clothing. The second period began with Immortality Delivered (1958-9 Gal as "Time Killer"; 1958; exp vt Immortality, Inc. 1959), filmed in 1992 as FREEJACK, and continued with his best novels, The Status Civilization (1960), Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962; vt The Journey of Joenes 1978 UK) and Mindswap (1966). In these books the typical Candide-like RS protagonist began, at times unduly, to dominate. In short stories, the occasionally venal naivete of this character did not much impair the rhythm of the tale; but in the novels his lethargy tended to be translated into plots which lacked drive. The typical RS full-length story is episodic, befitting the protagonist's lack of drive, and structured as a kind of guided tour of a particular sf milieu RS wishes to expose to satirical view; dumped into this disconcerting circuit, his typical protagonist must scramble about - sometimes comically - in order to survive and to gain some orientation. The protagonist of the first novel, after dying in a car crash, awakens 150 years hence in a whirligig USA where most forms of psychic phenomena, including life and death, have been verified. The Status Civilization is genuinely successful, embodying its satirical despairs in a shaped narrative set on a prison planet, where social hierarchies have turned topsy-turvy and conformity means being always wicked. In Journey Beyond Tomorrow the RS protagonist is an innocent who suffers a variety of alarming adventures after leaving his quiet NEAR-FUTURE Pacific island; the novel takes the form of a series of remembrances enshrined as myths 1000 years later. In Mindswap the protagonist switches minds with a Martian and is subjected to reality displacements galore. That was the end of RS's easy years.Dimension of Miracles (1968) - in which the protagonist wins in error a prize which shunts him back and forth across a Galaxy whose reality is disconcertingly arbitrary - may be thought to signal the slow onset of the third RS period, which was marked by novels either uneasy (like Miracles) or absent-minded, like Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera (1983). RS also continued his Victim sequence, begun in 1966 with The Tenth Victim, in 2 uninspired sequels, Victim Prime (1987 UK) and Hunter/Victim (1988 UK). The best novel of the period was probably Options (1975), a tale whose sf apparatus could be taken as a delusional frame, or understood as a series of dramatic projections - generated by the protagonist - of the various forms his life could be read as taking, rather after the fashion of Barry N. MALZBERG, whose treatment of sf themes as metaphors for all-too-human problems RS's late work most resembles. But The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton (1958 Gal as "The Humours"; exp 1978 UK; vt Crompton Divided 1978 US) - about the attempts of a paranoid schizophrenic to reassemble his mind, which has been split off into three widely separated receptacles - is also strong. The quality of RS's short fiction was less variable, though his increasing tendency to write almost ABSURDIST stories ( FABULATION) was not perhaps to the taste of the sf market in general - a sense reflected in the fact that many of them were first published in slick magazines such as Playboy rather than in sf magazines, though "A Suppliant in Space" won the Jupiter AWARD for the Best Short Story of 1973. The People Trap (coll 1968) contains a mixture of old and new stories, but most of the fiction in Can You Feel Anything When I Do This? (coll 1971; vt The Same to You Doubled 1974 UK) is typical of his late work-spasmodic, hilarious, despairing. Further examples can be found in The Robot who Looked like Me (coll 1978 UK) and The Wonderful World of Robert Sheckley (coll 1979). It may be that RS's inability to take seriously the simpler, more adventurous forms the genre can take, which he regularly and affectionately parodied when young, has had a paralysing effect on the mature writer, who sometimes sounds like a tongue-tied Kurt VONNEGUT Jr. If this is so, it is a considerable loss to the sf field that one of its sharpest wits can no longer pay it serious attention. [JC]Other works: Futuropolis (1978), nonfiction; The Status Civilization, and Notions: Unlimited (omni 1979); After the Fall (anth 1980); The People Trap/Mindswap (omni 1981); Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains * (1990) with Harry HARRISON; Watchbird (1990 chap); Minotaur Maze (1991); Xolotl (1991 chap); Alien Starswarm (1991 chap); Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (1991) with Roger ZELAZNY.Crime fiction/thrillers: 8 novels, from Calibre .50 (1961) to The Alternate Detective (1993).See also: ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; CITIES; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; ECONOMICS; ESCHATOLOGY; FORCE FIELD; GAMES AND SPORTS; GODS AND DEMONS; HISTORY OF SF; HUMOUR; LEISURE; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; OMNI; OVERPOPULATION; PARANOIA; REINCARNATION; ROBOTS; SEX; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES; TABOOS. SHEDLEY, ETHAN Pseudonym of Belgian-born writer Boris Beiser (1934- ), in the USA from 1941. In Earth Ship and Star Song (1979) humanity finds itself banned from ruined Earth. The Medusa Conspiracy (1980) is a more conventional adventure. [JC] SHEEHAN, PERLEY POORE (1875-1943) US writer and journalist responsible for much magazine fiction. The Abyss of Wonders (1915 Argosy; 1953) mixes Theosophy and superscience in its tale of a lost race in the Gobi Desert ( LOST WORLDS). [JC]Other works: The Seer (1912; vt The Prophet 1913 UK); The One Gift (1920 Argosy; 1974 chap); The Whispering Chorus (1928). SHEFFIELD, CHARLES (1935- ) UK-born physicist and writer, in the USA from the mid-1960s, publishing the first of nearly 100 technical papers and science articles in 1962, and the first of 80 or more sf stories, "What Song the Sirens Sang", for Gal in 1977; many of these stories are assembled in Vectors (coll 1979), Hidden Variables (coll 1981), Dancing With Myself (coll 1993) and Georgia on my Mind, and Other Places (coll 1995), the title story of which won the 1993 NEBULA and the 1994 HUGO awards for Best Novelette. His first novel, Sight of Proteus (1978), describes in ultimately optimistic terms the wide-ranging effects of machine-driven shapechanging technologies which might open the way to the nearby stars; the book almost instantly established CS's reputation for briskly argued, cleverly plotted, sanguine HARD SF, a reputation only marginally darkened by its first sequel Proteus Unbound (1989), which recasts material from the earlier book. Both tales were assembled as Proteus Manifest (omni 1989; rev vt Proteus Combined 1994); a second sequel is Proteus in the Underworld (1995). CS's second novel, The Web Between the Stars (1979; exp 1989), famously posited a sky-hook space elevator at almost exactly the same time as Arthur C. CLARKE presented an astonishingly similar space elevator in THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE (1979); the concepts had clearly been arrived at independently, and their similarity only underscored the clarity of each man's scientific imagination.In the 1980s, with an exuberance that seemed almost irresponsible in a writer of his scientific bent, CS ranged very widely in his choice of metier. The Selkie (1982) with David F. BISCHOFF, a SCIENCE-FANTASY novel tinged with elements of horror, describes a MUTANT race of male "wereseals" who must mate with human women to perpetuate their kind. My Brother's Keeper (1982) is an sf thriller whose MCGUFFIN, astonishingly, is half of the protagonist's brother's brain, housed in half the protagonist's head. Erasmus Magister (coll of linked stories 1982) features Erasmus DARWIN in a series of lightly told scientific adventures, and The McAndrew Chronicles (coll of linked stories 1983;rev vt One Man's Universe 1994) follows the exploits of the eponymous inventor. Between the Strokes of Night (1985) is a "cosmogony opera" sometimes compared to novels by Greg BEAR about exploring, understanding and transforming the Universe; in this case, exiled from Earth, humanity finds infinite resources in "S-space" and travels down the aisles of time to visit the Galaxy. The Nimrod Hunt (1986; with original text restored, exp vt The Mind Pool 1993) features intricately interesting ALIENS and CYBORGS in a SPACE-OPERA setting. Trader's World (fixup 1988) moves from a post- HOLOCAUST venue to higher things, including the threat of alien INVASION. Cold as Ice (1992), an intricate and polished space opera, depicts with glad clarity a Solar System full of highly active and scientifically curious human beings. The Heritage Universe sequence for younger readers - Summertide (1990), Divergence (1991) and Transcendence (1992), with a further volume published only in German - fills much of the Universe with BIG DUMB OBJECTS and sets in train a complex of plots hinging upon their decipherment and use. Some of his tales are dark enough, and ironies are frequently evident; but CS continues to seem ready to feel that the Universe may be enjoyed. [JC]Other works (all nonfiction): Commercial Operations in Space 1980-2000 (anth 1981) ed with John L. McLucas; Earthwatch: A Survey of the World from Space (1981 UK); Man on Earth: How Civilization and Technology Changed the Face of the World - A Survey from Space (1983); Space Careers (1984) with Carol Rosin; Brother to Dragons (1992); Godspeed (1993); The Judas Cross (1994) with David Bischoff; Future Quartet (anth 1994); The World of 2044: Technological Development and the Future of Society (anth 1994) with Marcelo Alonso and Morton A. Kaplan.See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; BIOLOGY; COSMOLOGY; DEL REY BOOKS; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; END OF THE WORLD; GENETIC ENGINEERING; JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD; SUSPENDED ANIMATION; TRANSPORTATION. SHEFNER, VADIM (SERGEEVICH) (1915- ) Russian writer known mostly for his poetry (from c1963) and mainstream fiction. Two short novels, Tchelovek S Piatiu "Ne" (trans Alice Stone Nakhimovsky and Alexander Nakhimovsky as "The Unman") and Devushka U Obryva (1970; trans Antonina W. Bouis as "Kovrigin's Chronicles"), were published in omnibus form as The Unman; Kovrigin's Chronicles (omni 1980 US). Both are - like other work assembled as Skromny Genii ["A Modest Genius"] (coll 1974), Imia Dlia Ptitsy ["The Name for the Bird"] (coll 1976), Kruglaia Taina ["The Round Mystery"] (coll 1977) and Skazki Dlia Unmykh ["Fairy-Tales for Smart Ones"] (coll 1985) - poetical and sometimes ironical borderline fantasies: modern urban fairy-tales. VS's full-length novel, Latchuga Dolzhnika ["A Debtor's Hovel"], is a mature literary work, combining elements of sf with those of philosophical prose. [VG]See also: SCIENTISTS. SHELDON, ALICE B. [r] James TIPTREE Jr. SHELDON, LEE Pseudonym of US writer and mailman Wayne Cyril Lee (1917-1987), who began publishing sf with "Project Asteroid" for Teens in 1966. His routine sf adventure novel was Doomed Planet (1967). [JC] SHELDON, RACCOONA [s] James TIPTREE Jr. SHELDON, ROY UK house name used by Hamilton & Co. (which published Panther Books) on short fiction and full-length novels in AUTHENTIC 1951-2 and on some routine sf novels 1952-4 by H.J. CAMPBELL, George HAY and E.C. TUBB. [JC] SHELLEY, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1797-1851) UK writer, daughter of the philosopher and novelist William Godwin (1756-1836) and of the feminist and educationist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), who died giving birth to her. MWS married Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) in 1816, 2 years after they had eloped to the Continent, and after his first wife had committed suicide. During 1816 the Shelleys spent much time with Lord Byron (1788-1824) who (or possibly his physician, John William Polidori [1795-1821]) suggested, after reading some of their work, that they should each write a ghost story. Nothing much came of Byron's or Percy Shelley's efforts, though Dr Polidori wrote The Vampyre (1819), but MWS - who was in her teens - wrote Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831), the most famous English HORROR novel - though perhaps not the most widely read, as its conventional GOTHIC narrative structure, which involves stories within frames and sentimentalized rhetoric, makes it somewhat difficult going for many modern readers more familiar with the numerous film, tv and other spin-offs from the original tale ( FRANKENSTEIN; FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER). The young Swiss scientist Frankenstein is obsessed with the notion that the spark of life may be a "spark" in some literal fashion, and hopes to create life by galvanizing dead matter. To this end he collects human remains, constructs a grotesque but mechanically sound body, and shocks it into life. The awakened/created MONSTER, initially innocent but soon corrupted by Frankenstein's growing revulsion, demands of his maker that a mate be created for him, and when this demand is refused starts on a rampage in which Frankenstein's wife and brother are killed. Frankenstein begins to track the monster down to destroy it, but eventually perishes, his mind gone, deep in the Arctic. The monster disappears across the ice floes.The increasing critical attention Frankenstein has received in recent years has focused on MWS herself, on her relation to her father's rationalist philosophy, and on her life with her husband at the time of the book's genesis. The novel itself has been analysed in terms of these concerns, perhaps most fruitfully in studies of its relation to the idea of the "natural man". The monster - who reads Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) - is in a sense a tabula rasa, and the evil that he does, he is shaped to do by the revulsion and persecution of others; he has to learn to be a monster. Alternatively, he can be thought of as an embodiment of the evil latent in mankind, in which case he need merely be given the opportunity to be a monster. The novel has also been studied as a defining model of the Gothic mode of fiction, and in Billion Year Spree (1973; much exp vt Trillion Year Spree 1986 with David WINGROVE), Brian W. ALDISS argues its importance as the first genuine sf novel, the first significant rendering of the relations between mankind and science through an image of mankind's dual nature appropriate to an age of science. Aldiss's own Frankenstein Unbound (1973) treats of both MWS and her creation. Although MWS's novel does seem vulgarly to argue that there are things that Man is not meant to know, it is far more than an awful-warning shot across the bows of the evils of scientism; no simple paraphrase of this sort can adequately describe it.MWS wrote a further PROTO-SCIENCE-FICTION novel, The Last Man (1826), set at the end of the 21st century, in which a plague decimates humanity. The surviving Americans invade Europe but, although war ends before the extinction of humanity, the remaining British are soon reduced through strife to the last man of the title, who much resembles MS's late husband, and who ends the novel in a small boat sailing off to the Eastern Isles. The tale served as a model for much subsequent work using its basic idea of a world in which there can be a last, secular survivor. The story of most interest assembled by Richard GARNETT in Tales and Stories by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (coll 1891) is The Mortal Immortal (in The Keepsake [anth 1934]; c1910 chap US); the later Collected Tales and Stories (coll 1976 US) is more convenient. The Mary Shelley Reader (coll 1990 US) presents the original-and rather more sharply told - 1818 version of Frankenstein, several short stories, and other valuable material. [JC]About the author: There is much criticism. Mary Shelley (1959) by E. Bigland; Mary Shelley (1972) by William A. Walling; Ariel Like a Harpy: Shelley, Mary and Frankenstein (1972; vt Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Tracing the Myth US) by Christopher Small; Mary Shelley's Monster - The Story of Frankenstein (1976) by Martin Tropp; Moon in Eclipse: A Life of Mary Shelley (1978) by Jane Dunn; Mary Shelley (1985) by Harold BLOOM. Critical editions of Frankenstein include those ed M.K. JOSEPH (1969), James Rieger (1974 US), Maurice Hindle (1985), Marilyn Butler (1994), which gives the 1818 text; and The Annotated Frankenstein (1979; rev vt The Essential Frankenstein 1993), ed Leonard Wolf, also giving the 1818 text.See also: ANDROIDS; ANONYMOUS SF AUTHORS; BIOLOGY; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; END OF THE WORLD; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; GODS AND DEMONS; HISTORY OF SF; HOLOCAUST AND AFTER; HORROR IN SF; MEDICINE; POWER SOURCES; RELIGION; SCIENTISTS; SEX; THEATRE; WOMEN SF WRITERS. SHELTON, MILES [s] Don WILCOX. SHEPARD, LUCIUS (1947- ) US writer about whose first appearances in print there has been some confusion, due to the fact that he is credited with 4 stories and 4 articles in Collins Magazine (various retitled Collins, the Magazine to Grow Up With and Collins Young Elizabethan) between 1952 and 1955, the first short story thus credited being "Camp Greenville" in 1953; it is understood that a family member may have placed these stories under LS's name (he would otherwise need to be described as an author of noticeably competent short stories from the age of 6). LS's first acknowledged work was POETRY, and his first book was a poem, Cantata of Death, Weakmind & Generation (1967 chap); he began to publish adult prose fictions of genre interest only with "The Taylorsville Reconstruction" for Universe 13 (anth 1983) ed Terry CARR. Between the mid-1960s and the beginning of the 1980s, LS lived in various parts of the world, travelled widely, became - according to his own testimony - marginally and incompetently involved in the fringes of the international drug trade, and in about 1972 started a rock band which went through various incarnations over the following years. Some of the experiences of this long apprenticeship are directly reflected in stories like "A Spanish Lesson" (1985); but the abiding sense of authority generated by all his best work depends upon the born exile's passionate fixation on place. It is no accident that - aside from the Latin American MAGIC-REALIST tradition whose influence upon him is often suggested - the writer whom LS seems at times most to resemble is Joseph CONRAD, for both authors respond to the places of the world with imaginative avarice and a hallucinated intensity of portrayal; both create deeply alienated protagonists whose displacement from the venues in which they live generates constant ironies and regrets; and both tend to subordinate mundane resolutions of plot to moments of terminal, deathly transcendence. None of this constitutes a necessary or sufficient description of an sf writer; and certainly, despite his aesthetic influence on the genre in the years since his explosive debut (for which he received a JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD in 1985), LS is not at heart an sf writer.His first novel, however, is as much sf as horror. In Green Eyes (1984) a research organization in the US Deep South has successfully created zombies by injecting cadavers with bacteria from a graveyard. As an sf premise, this is unconvincing; but LS presents the transformation of dead bodies into representative human archetypes, and the escape of one of them into bayou country, with a gripping closeness of touch; the transcendental epiphany at the end, already characteristic of his work, also tests true. His second novel, Life during Wartime (fixup 1987), similarly embeds sf elements - a 21st-century setting, advanced forms of drug manipulation - into a Latin American venue which, essentially, absorbs these elements in a horrified, dense presentation of a Vietnam WAR conducted, this time, in the Western Hemisphere. "R & R" (1986), which won a NEBULA, shapes the first part of the book; and a hallucinated, obsessed journey into the heart of darkness in search of underlying transcendence dominates its last sections. Kallimantan (1990 UK) evokes, with extreme vividness, Conrad himself as well as Graham Greene (1904-1991) in another transcendental heart-of-darkness tale, set this time in Borneo and featuring at its centre a not altogether convincing transference to an sf ALTERNATE WORLD.LS continues to be most successful at novelette/novella length, and several of the longer tales assembled in THE JAGUAR HUNTER (coll 1987; with 1 story cut and 3 added, rev 1988 UK; cut 1989 US) and The Ends of the Earth (coll 1991) are among the finest FABULATIONS composed by a US writer in recent years; he won a 1993 HUGO Best Novella Award for"Barnacle Bill the Spacer" (1992). A story sequence - "The Man who Painted the Dragon Griaule" (1984) plus 2 novellas, The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter (1988) and The Father of Stones (1988) - makes the same use of the devices of high fantasy that the full-length novels made of sf: as material to massage into thematic compost, in the heart of which dark epiphanies may be viewed and embraced, perhaps at the cost of death. LS has clearly felt comfortable with sf, as he uses it; and the genre has benefited from the publication of a dozen tales which assimilate sf into a wider imaginative world. At the time of writing, however, there is some sense that two ships may have passed in the night. [JC]About the author: A Checklist of Lucius Shepard (1991 chap) by Tom Joyce and Christopher P. STEPHENS.See also: ACE BOOKS; ESCHATOLOGY; FANTASY; GOTHIC SF; ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE; REINCARNATION. SHERBURNE, ZOA (MORIN) (1912- ) US author of an sf novel for older children, The Girl who Knew Tomorrow (1970). Why Have the Birds Stopped Singing? (1974) is fantasy. [JC] SHERIDAN, THOMAS [s] Walter GILLINGS. SHERMAN, HAROLD M(ORROW) (1898-1987) US writer. His first work was the Tahara sequence - Tahara, Boy King of the Desert (1933), Tahara Among African Tribes (1933), Tahara, Boy Mystic of India (1933) and Tahara in the Land of Yucatan (1933) - in which a young White boy parachutes into the Sahara and becomes king of the Stone Age inhabitants of a LOST WORLD; subsequent novels take him and his companions to various lands ( ATLANTIS is mentioned but not visited), where they solve various mysteries (sometimes by ESP). HMS later became known almost exclusively for work published in AMAZING STORIES in the 1940s, most notably The Green Man (1946) and its sequel, "The Green Man Returns" (1947 AMZ), both assembled as The Green Man and his Return (coll 1979), in which the eponymous ALIEN tries to bring peace to a recalcitrant Earth. [JC] SHERMAN, JOEL HENRY (1957- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "Medium" for AMZ in 1984. His first novel, Corpseman (1988), is an unremarkable tale of a CYBORG who must cope with false imprisonment. More interestingly, Random Factor (1991) combines routine sf-thriller components with an ALIEN race whose nature must be deciphered at the interstellar station where various species are in conflict. [JC] SHERMAN, MICHAEL and PETER MICHAEL [s] Robert A.W. LOWNDES. SHERRED, T(HOMAS) L. (1915-1985) US writer who worked in Detroit for the auto industry as a technical writer. His production of fiction was small, and First Person, Peculiar (coll 1972) contains all the stories for which he is remembered, most significantly "E for Effort", his first published story (1947 ASF). It describes, humorously but with a fundamental pessimism, the consequences of a device that permits its users to view past and present events. Its inventor and his associate are successful at first, but are soon defeated by government forces. Ultimately the existence of the "camera" in the hands of the US military causes a final WAR, as the victim-narrator has predicted. (It is understood that the story was accepted for ASF in John W. CAMPBELL Jr's absence.) The other tales are "Cue for Quiet" (1953), "Eye for Iniquity" (1953) and "Cure, Guaranteed" (1954); they are clear-cut, forceful and black. The note accompanying "Bounty" in Again, Dangerous Visions (anth 1972) ed Harlan ELLISON revealed that TLS had suffered a mild stroke before 1971 and was unlikely to write further. However, Alien Island (1970), his first novel, had already been written; its sequel, Alien Main (1985) with Lloyd BIGGLE Jr, was completed by his collaborator. Alien Island is a sometimes comic but fundamentally melancholy tale about ALIENS secretly on Earth and the eventual disaster that results; the sequel - set two centuries later, with an Earth-descended alien defending the beleaguered planet - broadens and softens the implications of the first book, but returned TLS, at the close of his life, to the sf main. [JC]See also: MACHINES; MONEY; TIME TRAVEL. SHERRELL, CARL (1929-1990) US commercial artist and, later, writer whose novels are essentially fantasies, with the exception of the unremarkable The Space Prodigal (1981). His fantasies are the Raum sequence - Raum (1977) and Skraelings (1987) - plus Arcane (1978) and The Curse (1989). [JC] SHERRIFF, R(OBERT) C(EDRIC) (1896-1975) UK playwright, novelist and film-writer, known mainly for his hit play Journey's End (1929), filmed in 1930 by James Whale and in 1975 as Aces High. His sf novel, The Hopkins Manuscript (1939; rev vt The Cataclysm 1958), is a DISASTER tale set mostly in rural England where the protagonist, Edgar Hopkins (whose manuscript is discovered hundreds of years later by Abyssinian archaeologists), fussily eulogizes his beloved countryside and people as the dislodged Moon crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, causing tornadoes and tsunamis. Hopkins then records an abortive recovery of civilization before the Moon's mineral wealth tempts the shattered nations of Europe into terminal conflict and an Asian warlord moves in. The science is derisory, but the elegy is strongly felt. RCS wrote the screenplay for the 1933 film The INVISIBLE MAN . [JC] SHERWOOD, MARTIN (ANTHONY) (1942- ) UK writer with a PhD in organic chemistry; editor of Chemistry & Industry. His sf novels are Survival (1975) and Maxwell's Demon (1976); in the latter, ALIENS invade humans, thus putting them to sleep. [JC] SHETTERLY, WILL [r] Emma BULL. SHEW, ROWLAND Michael F. FLYNN. SHIBANO, TAKUMI (1926- ) Japanese writer, translator and critic. TS began writing sf as Rei Kozumi while a high-school mathematics teacher - a job he quit in 1977 to become a full-time translator; he published his first short story in 1951. Later, 1969-75, he published 3 sf juveniles, including Hokkyoku-Shi No Hanran ["Revolt in North-Pole City"] (1977). But his influence on Japanese sf was more in his work as editor and publisher of the widely circulated Uchujin (1957-current), the first Japanese FANZINE, in which many stories by later-prominent sf writers - such as Sakyo KOMATSU - were published; it reached #190 in 1991 and continues to introduce new writers. One of the most prominent figures in the Japanese sf community, TS has received many sf awards; the "Takumi Shibano Award", given since 1982 to people who have performed generous work in fandom, was named after him. As a translator he has specialized in HARD SF: most of Larry NIVEN's books as well as works by James P. HOGAN, Poul ANDERSON, Hal CLEMENT and many more - about 50 books in all. TS has also ed 2 anthologies of stories from Uchujin, the first in 3 vols (1977) and the second in 2 (1987). He wrote the entry on JAPAN in this encyclopedia. [PN] SHIEL, M(ATTHEW) P(HIPPS) (1865-1947) UK writer, born Shiell in Montserrat in the British West Indies; in the UK from his late teens. He began writing fiction in the late 1880s and continued intermittently until his death, although his significant fantastic fiction was published 1896-1901. MPS was intensely concerned with style per se, incorporating poetic techniques into narrative prose; he also used sensational adventure fiction as a vehicle for idiosyncratic ideas about ECONOMICS, science and RELIGION. As a result, his work is not to every reader's taste, although it has been praised highly by such critics and fellow writers as Rebecca West (1892-1983), Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957).Since MPS matured in England during the fin de siecle, it is not surprising that his early work shows highly romantic subject matter and an obsessive concern with decorated prose, his models being mostly Edgar Allan POE and mid-19th-century French writers. Early work includes extremely baroque detective short stories, in Prince Zaleski (coll 1895), and horror fiction collected in Shapes in the Fire (coll 1896) and The Pale Ape (coll 1911). Although these stories, written in a lapidary style, were on the edge of being old-fashioned when they appeared, they are among the very best examples of their sort.After his noncommercial early work, MPS shifted to serials for the popular press. Future- WAR novels include The Yellow Danger (1889 Short Stories as "The Empress of the Earth"; 1898) and The Dragon (1913 The Red Magazine as "To Arms!"; 1913). Both novels, which contain sf elements (especially The Dragon), are adventure stories in which the Yellow Peril - i.e., Chinese hordes - overwhelms the world by sheer quantity of manpower. Both, however, depart from the stereotyped Yellow Peril story in seeing the quarrel between Orient and Occident as ultimately a spiritual matter, rather than economic, as Chinese and UK SUPERMEN strive for domination. Both novels are developed along similar lines, basic ideas being: the horrors of war (depicted on such a colossal scale and with such sangfroid that some have seen MPS's attitude as callous approval); a strange mixing of Nietzschean and Tolstoyan theories of history, in which supermen make history but are generated by their culture; a Spencerian survival of the fittest on a racial level; and thinly veiled suggestions of paranoia. Both books, aimed at a popular market, are sparsely written with no attempt at stylistic decoration. A third war novel, The Yellow Wave (1905), is a non-fantastic work based on the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5).MPS's finest work is generally conceded to have been The Purple Cloud (1901), the story of the last man left on Earth after hydrocyanic acid gas liberated by volcanism has killed off mammalian life. The doings of the protagonist, driven mad by solitude, are brilliantly and vividly imagined. Behind the story, however, lies a mythic cosmic struggle between opposing forces that use humans as tools. The Lord of the Sea (1901; savagely cut 1924 US), almost as fine, is strongly based on Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844-5; trans anon as The Count of Monte-Cristo 1846 UK) by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870). It develops a network of mid-19th-century sensational motifs - incredible coincidences, swapped babies, hidden identities, chance-found incredible wealth, documents in a trunk, festering revenges, elaborate prison escapes, frustrated romance, Napoleonic megalomania - yet, though written to an aesthetic outdated for its time, it embodies that aesthetic with enormous elan and vitality. The essence of the book is a concept adapted from the work of the popular US economist Henry George (1839-1897): if certain individuals can hog the land, others can hog the sea. Building on this insight, one Hogarth, using the wealth plucked from a diamond-laden meteorite, builds sea forts and claims ownership of the oceans. The Lord of the Sea has been criticized as antisemitic, since it depicts a UK overrun by Jewish refugees from Continental pogroms, including unpleasant caricatures reminiscent of the stage Jew of earlier drama; other critics, however, have rejected the accusation.MPS's other fantastic fiction includes: The Last Miracle (1906), about a plot to discredit Christianity with fake miraculous visions created by gigantic hologram-like devices; "The Place of Pain Day" (1914 The Red Magazine), about a natural water lens that shows horrors on the Moon, and "The Future Day" (1928 London Daily Herald), about life and love in an aeronautic culture, which both appeared in The Invisible Voices (coll 1935); and This Above All (1933; vt Above All Else 1943), about a trio of immortals made so by Jesus, who is alive in Tibet. MPS also occasionally ghost-wrote for Louis TRACY; the sf novel An American Emperor (1897), as by Tracy, is in large part by MPS. His last sf work, The Young Men are Coming (1937), deals partly with contemporary social upheaval and partly with an interstellar visit. The multiple-sex ALIENS are far superior to humanity and possess an incredible superscience. The sf element is much more sophisticated and imaginative than contemporary GENRE SF, but is buried in a welter of eccentric social philosophy, and told in the decorated style of its author's youth. The result is at times almost unreadable.With MPS is associated the "Kingdom of Redonda". His sea-trader father (MPS claimed) laid claim to the small uninhabited ISLAND of Redonda, near Antigua, and in a ceremony there crowned young Matthew king. On MPS's death the "crown" passed to John GAWSWORTH, who awarded titles of nobility to persons associated with Shiel, including Sayers, West, Edward SHANKS and Dylan Thomas (1914-1953). On Gawsworth's death the title became clouded.MPS has received some attention outside fantastic fiction as a writer of partial Black ancestry, and as perhaps the first UK novelist of Caribbean origin. [EFB]Other works: The Best Short Stories of M.P. Shiel (coll 1948) ed John Gawsworth; Xelucha and Others (coll 1975 US); Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk (coll 1977 US); Xelucha and the Primate of the Rose (coll 1994 chap).About the author: The Works of M.P. Shiel: A Study in Bibliography (1948), rev and much exp as The Works of M.P. Shiel - Updated (in 2 vols 1980) by A. Reynolds Morse, along with Shiel in Diverse Hands (anth 1984), also ed Morse; "The World, the Devil, and M.P. Shiel" by Sam Moskowitz in Explorers of the Infinite (coll 1963); "The Politics of Evolution: Philosophical Themes in the Speculative Fiction of M.P. Shiel" in Foundation #27 (1983) by Brian M. STABLEFORD.See also: END OF THE WORLD; MEDICINE; MESSIAHS; POLITICS; SOCIAL DARWINISM; VILLAINS; WEAPONS. SHINER, LEWIS (GORDON) (1950- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "Tinker's Damn" for Galileo in 1977, and who wrote a substantial number of tales before beginning to assemble them in Nine Hard Questions about the Nature of the Universe (coll 1990) and The Edges of Things (coll 1991). His work in short form has been various, tending at its best to a clear-edged intensity which gives his venues, whether or not sf, a glow of seriousness; at its less impressive, in earlier stories, there is a sense of overindustrious journeyman plundering of recent sf writers for models. But increasingly an engaged and sophisticated mind can be seen extracting hard kernels of import out of those models. LS's first novel, Frontera (1984), in which a team is sent to MARS by a large corporation to investigate an abandoned colony, ostensibly obeys the sf-adventure rules governing tales of that sort, but insinuates throughout a bleaker, denser view of humanity's life in space. Deserted Cities of the Heart (1988), set in a MAGIC-REALIST Mexico, features a complexity of plots, involving imagined TIME TRAVEL back to the age of the Mayas, heated sexual and political intertwinings, and moments of not entirely convinced transcendence; but the style of the tale is shining and faceted, and its various protagonists are vividly realized. Slam (1990), a non-sf tale about a reformed tax-evader paroled from prison (or "slam"), competently and copiously evokes a sense of Texas not dissimilar to that imparted by fellow Texans like Neal BARRETT Jr and Howard WALDROP; the ambitious Glimpses (1993) is fantasy. It is sf's loss that LS's career seems to be moving swiftly away from the genre. [JC]Other works: Twilight Time (1984 IASFM; 1991 chap); When the Music's Over (anth 1991).See also: CYBERPUNK; GOTHIC SF; MUSIC; WILD CARDS. SHIRAS, WILMAR H(OUSE) (1908-1990) US writer whose first novel, Slow Dawning (1946) as by Jane Howes, was not sf or fantasy. She began publishing sf with "In Hiding" (1948 ASF), the first of several stories assembled as Children of the Atom (1948-50 ASF; fixup 1953). This concerns a number of radiation-engendered child geniuses who initially hide their abilities from the world, then reveal themselves, taking the risk that in trying to help normal humans they may merely end as martyrs. The story is sensitively told, avoiding most of the CLICHES of pulp-sf SUPERMAN stories. WHS remained active as a story writer until the 1970s. [JC]See also: ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; CHILDREN IN SF; INTELLIGENCE; MUTANTS; WOMEN SF WRITERS. SHIRLEY, JOHN (PATRICK) (1954- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "The Word 'Random,' Deliberately Repeated" for Clarion (anth 1973) ed Robin Scott WILSON, and who has performed as lead singer in rock bands, including the punk band Sado Nation. This background heavily influenced his first novel, the DYSTOPIAN Transmaniacon (1979), in which the typical JS protagonist appears: punk, anarchic, exorbitant, his mind evacuated of normal constraints, death-loving. Similar characters appear in Three-Ring Psychus (1980), which describes mass levitation ( PSI POWERS) with anarchist rapture, and City Come A-Walkin' (1980), set in a surrealistically harsh inner city. After writing some horror novels - to which genre his inclinations have constantly urged him, for JS is not at heart an sf writer - and most titles in the Traveler sequence as by D.B. DRUMM ( Ed NAHA), he created his finest sf work in the CYBERPUNK-coloured Song Called Youth trilogy - Eclipse (1985), Eclipse Penumbra (1988) and Eclipse Corona (1990) - set after a realistically conceived WWIII and describing a technologically deft resistance movement which fights a neofascist regime to a standstill, ultimately defeating it. In another late novel, A Splendid Chaos (1988), JS returns to a more surreal background, this time a hazardous planet where a small group of humans must compete for survival against unpredictable ALIENS. But the main challenge to "normal" humans comes from some of their own species, who have been remoulded in the image of their darkest fantasies - a horror device typical of the author, whose best effects have always come from sparking the gap between normality and horrific madness.Though his short work sometimes suffers burnout from excessive intensity, the stories assembled in Heatseeker (coll 1988) effectively demonstrate JS's solitudinous strengths, the flare of his anger. [JC/CW]Other works: Dracula in Love (1979); The Brigade (1982); Cellars (1982); Kamus of Kadizhar: The Black Hole of Carcosa: A Tale of the Darkworld Detective * (1988), tied to J. Michael REAVES's Darkworld Detective (coll of linked stories 1982); In Darkness Waiting (1988); Wetbones (1992); New Noir (coll 1993).See also: CITIES; MUSIC; POLITICS. SHIVERS The PARASITE MURDERS. S.H.M. [s] A. Bertram CHANDLER. SHORT CIRCUIT Film (1986). Turman-Foster/Tri-Star. Dir John BADHAM, starring Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Brian McNamara. Screenplay S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock. 98 mins. Colour.Military ROBOT Number Five, a prototype killing machine, is struck by lightning which endows it with sentience. It escapes from evil Nova Robotics, finding refuge with nice animal-lover Stephanie (Sheedy), who assumes it to be an ALIEN. It educates itself and is winsome. When she finds it is a robot she turns it in, but has second thoughts and helps save it from deactivation. SC's assumption that, with a bit of divine aid, even a weapon will turn to peace and love is pleasantly silly. SC is amusing but formulaic, and the robot is nauseatingly cute; the film is much weaker than Badham's BLUE THUNDER and WARGAMES. The displeasing sequel is Short Circuit 2 (1988), dir Kenneth Johnson, who normally directs tv (The BIONIC WOMAN , The INCREDIBLE HULK ), and stars Fisher Stevens again as the Indian co-inventor of the robot, played in an offensively patronising Peter Sellers Indian accent. This is a caper movie in which Number Five (now Johnny Five) is duped into helping criminals out with a jewel robbery. [PN]See also: CINEMA. SHORT CIRCUIT 2 SHORT CIRCUIT. SHORT STORIES INC. WEIRD TALES. SHRINKING MEN GREAT AND SMALL. SHUPP, MIKE (1946- ) US aerospace engineer and writer known for his Destiny Makers sequence-With Fate Conspire (1985), Morning of Creation (1985), Soldier of Another Fortune (1988), Death's Gray Land (1991) and The Last Reckoning (1991) - featuring the exploits of a Vietnam veteran transported by TIME TRAVEL into a future where telepaths, being despised, are trying to change history. Time wars of the usual complexity ensue. [JC]See also: ESP. SHUSTER, JOE [r] Jerry SIEGEL; SUPERMAN. SHUTE, NEVIL Working name of UK writer Nevil Shute Norway (1899-1960), who for many years combined writing with work as an aeronautical engineer, specializing in Zeppelins; after moving for health reasons in 1950 to Australia - where he set much of his later fiction - he wrote full-time. Some of his earlier fiction, by taking advantage of his intense and very up-to-date knowledge of aeronautics, verges very closely on sf, and What Happened to the Corbetts (1939; vt Ordeal 1939 US) is a genuine future- WAR tale. An Old Captivity (1940) is the tale of a man who dreams in a coma (accurately, it proves, and on the basis of data unknown at the time of the dream) of Vikings in Greenland and of their life there; a later screenplay to an unmade film, Vinland the Good (1946), treats similar material. No Highway (1948) deals with metal fatigue as the cause of airplane disasters and was published just before the first of the Comet jet crashes that occurred for exactly that reason; the protagonist's daughter seems, as well, to have ESP powers. It was filmed as No Highway in the Sky (1951).NS's two Australian sf novels remain his best known. In the Wet (1953), the journal of an Australian outback priest who copies down from a dying man a UTOPIAN vision (or memory) of the British Empire cAD2000, anticipates a time when Australia has become the leader of the Commonwealth, royalty has survived handsomely, socialism has faded away, and the Empire is secure. Much closer to the bone was the famous On the Beach (1957), filmed as ON THE BEACH (1959), a near-future DISASTER tale in which nuclear war has eliminated all life in the northern hemisphere, leaving Australia to await the inevitable spread of radioactive contamination - delayed by global wind-patterns - that will end human life on Earth. NS was an excellent popular novelist; his stories demonstrate a seamless narrative skill, and his protagonists are, unfailingly, decent men. [JC]See also: END OF THE WORLD; PREDICTION. SHUTTLE, PENELOPE (DIANE) (1947- ) UK poet and novelist, married to Peter REDGROVE (whom see for their sf collaborations). Her only solo novel of genre interest, The Mirror of the Giant (1980), combines FEMINIST self-analysis with elements of the traditional ghost story. [JC] SHWARTZ, SUSAN M(ARTHA) (1949- ) US writer who has been much more clearly associated with fantasy than with sf, beginning with her first story, "The Fires of Her Vengeance" in The Keeper's Price (anth 1979) ed Marion Zimmer BRADLEY, and continuing with extended works like the impressive Heirs to Byzantium ALTERNATE-WORLD fantasy trilogy: Byzantium's Crown (1987), The Woman of Flowers (1987) and Queensblade (1988). Her 2 sf novels are White Wing (1985) with S.N. LEWITT, writing together as Gordon Kendall, which is a vigorous sf adventure, and Heritage of Flight (fixup 1989), an adventure set on an alien planet. Though sf has not attracted her full attention, a caring literacy attractively infuses both tales; and Habitats (anth 1984) contains several interesting sf tales original to that volume. [JC]Other works: Silk Roads and Shadows (1988); Imperial Lady (1989) with Andre NORTON; The Grail of Hearts (1992); Empire of the Eagle (1993) with Norton.As Editor: Hecate's Cauldron (anth 1982); Moonsinger's Friends (anth 1985), in honour of Norton; Arabesques: More Tales of the Arabian Nights (anth 1988) and its sequel, Arabesques II (anth 1989). SIBSON, FRANCIS H(ENRY) (1899-? ) South African writer, prolific during the 1930s; most of his work, which was technically proficient, had something to do with airplanes or the sea and ships. The Survivors (1932) and its sequel The Stolen Continent (1934) describe first the violent creation of a new island in the Sargasso Sea (its rapid surfacing beaches an ocean liner), and second the international conflicts surrounding claims to the new territory, named New Canada. Unthinkable (1933) depicts an arduous Antarctic expedition whose members find, on their return north, that civilization has been destroyed by a final WAR involving gas and other weapons. [JC] SIEGEL, JERRY (1914- ) US writer and sf fan who founded and issued with the illustrator Joe Shuster (1914-1992) the FANZINE Science Fiction in October 1932, one of the earliest occasions on which the term was used in a title; it ran for 5 issues, publishing stories by Raymond A. PALMER and others. In the same year he published a story, Guest of the Earth (1932 chap). Also with Shuster he created the comic SUPERMAN, which first appeared in 1938, after they had spent years trying to sell the idea to publishers. [JC]See also: COMICS; DC COMICS; ILLUSTRATION. SIEGEL, MARTIN (1941-1972) US writer who died young of leukemia. His sf novels are Agent of Entropy (1969) and The Unreal People (1973). The first combines SATIRE and SPACE OPERA in a heated tale; the second is a post-holocaust POCKET-UNIVERSE tale in which Earth's surface is uninhabitable and people live frenetically and desperately underground. [JC] SIENKIEWICZ, BILL (1958- ) US COMICS artist. His early work was heavily influenced by Neal ADAMS, although his fine pen line was more fluid and expressive, and his brushwork freer. His work matured, becoming more painterly and stylish, as he graduated to GRAPHIC NOVELS. BS appears now to have deserted narrative art for advertising, record-cover design and more upmarket illustration. He has won many awards, including the 1987 Jack Kirby Award for Best Artist and the 1986 Yellow Kid (Italy).He attended the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, and began illustrating comic books in 1978 with a story in The Hulk magazine featuring Moon Knight, a character who gave the title to a comic-book series which BS drew 1980-84, developing a dramatic narrative technique along with his energetic and increasingly sophisticated drawing. He drew and coloured an adaptation of the 1984 film DUNE (Marvel Super Special #36, 1984), and contributed a number of exciting issues to MARVEL COMICS's New Mutants title 1984-6. His first fully painted strip, which appeared in the last issue of Epic Illustrated (1986), was "Slow Down Sir"; he went on to develop this aspect of his work further with the graphic novel Electra Assassin (1986-7; graph 1987). His magnum opus was Stray Toasters (graph 1988), a 4-part graphic novel inspired by the film-maker David Lynch (1945- ). Since then his comic-book work has been limited to the first 2 episodes of Alan MOORE's Big Numbers (1990). [RT]Other work: Bill Sienkiewicz Sketch Book (1990). SIEVEKING, LANCE Working name of UK writer and radio producer Lancelot de Giberne Sieveking (1896-1972) on his later work, though his first books were signed L. de Giberne Sieveking. He was with the BBC 1924-56; in 1955-6 he edited the publisher Ward Lock's sf list; his literary memoir, The Eye of the Beholder (1957), included portraits of figures of sf interest such as H.G. WELLS. He began publishing sf with "The Prophetic Camera" for The English Review in 1922, and his first novel Stampede! (1924)-dedicated to, illustrated by, and in its side-of-the-mouth fantasticality derivative of G.K. CHESTERTON-featured a Thought Machine used by anarchists to convey telepathic commands. In The Ultimate Island: A Strange Adventure (1925) ATLANTIS has survived in the midst of concealing fog and whirlpools, into which maelstrom ships have for centuries been lured. LS's best known sf work, A Private Volcano (1955), depicts the effects of a catalyst (thrown up from a volcano) which turns all dross to gold. After outgrowing his borrowed manners, LS became a literate writer, though sometimes uneasy in his handling of genre effects. [JC]Other works: The Woman She Was (1934).See also: ISLANDS. SIEVERT, JAN Ryder SYVERSTEN. SILBERSACK, JOHN (WALTER) (1954- ) US editor and writer, active in the former capacity with Putnam/Berkley books 1977-81, with New American Library 1986-92, with Warner Books in 1992, and with Harper Collins from 1993. Throughout his career he has been noted for a swift and canny knowledgeability about the sf world. With Victoria Schochet he ed the first 4 vols of the Berkley Showcase: New Writings in Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology series (#1 and #2 1980; #3 and #4 1981) ( The BERKLEY SHOWCASE for further details). He has also ed 2 collections: Fritz LEIBER's The Change War (coll 1978) and Avram DAVIDSON's Collected Fantasies (coll 1982). His own writing has been, by comparison, peripheral, consisting of an anonymous sf spoof, No Frills Science Fiction (1981 chap), and Rogers' Rangers * (1983), a BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY tie. [JC] SILENT, WILLIAM T. Pseudonym of US writer John William Jackson Jr (1945- ), author of the sf adventure novel Lord of the Red Sun (1972). [JC] SILENT RUNNING Film (1971). Universal. Dir Douglas Trumbull, starring Bruce Dern. Screenplay Deric Washburn, Mike Cimino, Steve Bocho, from a story by Trumbull. 90 mins. Colour.All plant life on Earth has been destroyed in the aftermath of a nuclear HOLOCAUST; only vast orbiting spaceships like Valley Forge, with its external hydroponic domes, still contain trees and flowers, the hope being that these may one day be used to re-seed the planet; but then their destruction is ordered by the totalitarian Earth government. SR's premise is obviously fatuous - it would be cheaper to leave the spaceships in place. Bruce Dern plays, in penitent's robes, the only true conservationist left alive, a low-grade gardener aboard the Valley Forge. When the order comes through to dump the vegetation he kills his companions (with the film's tacit approval) and sets off into deep space with the plants (apparently forgetting they have previously needed sunlight to live). He is accompanied only by three small, cute, box-shaped ROBOTS (in fact operated by amputees). SR is occasionally spectacular - Trumbull was one of the special-effects supervisors on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), and SR's scenes of vast spaceships floating through space compare well with those in Stanley KUBRICK's epic - but the film is morally dubious, scientifically unsound and sociologically implausible. [PN/JB] SILKE, JAMES R. [r] Frank FRAZETTA. SILLITOE, ALAN (1928- ) UK writer best known for novels like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958). The General (1960) sets abstract armies clashing on an abstract ground, perhaps not Terran. The anti-authoritarian SATIRE, Travels in Nihilon (1971), initially reads as a DYSTOPIA, for the 5 travellers to that country despise its government and work to overthrow it; but, by story's close, Nihilism as a political creed seems to gain the author's guarded sanction. Snow on the North Side of Lucifer (1979) is a poetry sequence about conflicts between God and Satan. [JC] SILVA, JOSEPH Ron GOULART. SHIPPEY, TOM Working name of UK academic and editor Thomas A. Shippey (1943- ), Professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at the University of Leeds. In essays and reviews, which he has been publishing since the mid-1970s, he takes a clear-headed orthodox view of the central figures of sf and fantasy; Fictional Space: Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction (coll 1991) assembles some of this work. The Road to Middle-Earth (1982) is a study of J.R.R. TOLKIEN. TS also ed The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories (anth 1992), in the Introduction to which he espouses James Bradley's notion that sf is a literature whose central image is "the creator of artefacts" or Homo "fabril". TS cowrote the theme entries on MAGIC and HISTORY IN SF in this encyclopedia. [JC] SILVERBERG, ROBERT (1935- ) Extremely prolific US writer, author of more than 100 sf books, more than 60 nonfiction books and a great deal of other work, including an estimated 100-150 erotic novels as by Don Elliott and other undisclosed pseudonyms; he has also edited or co-edited more than 60 anthologies. He began to write while studying for his BA at Columbia University; his first published story was "Gorgon Planet" (1954). His first novel, a juvenile, was Revolt on Alpha C (1955). He began to publish prolifically in 1956, winning a HUGO in that year as Most Promising New Author, and continued to specialize in sf for 3 years. He worked for the ZIFF-DAVIS stable, producing wordage at assembly-line speed for AMAZING STORIES and FANTASTIC, and was a prolific contributor to such magazines as SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES and SUPER-SCIENCE FICTION, using many different names. For part of this time Randall GARRETT was a partner in this "fiction factory"; they wrote in collaboration as Robert Randall, Gordon Aghill and Ralph Burke (RS also used the Burke pseudonym on solo work). The most important pseudonyms which RS used exclusively were Calvin M. Knox and David Osborne; he also wrote sf as T.D. Bethlen, Dirk Clinton, Dan Elliot, Ivar Jorgenson (a variant spelling of the floating pseudonym Ivar JORGENSEN), Dan Malcolm, Webber Martin, Alex Merriman, George Osborne, Eric Rodman, Hall Thornton and Richard F. Watson. He appeared under such Ziff-Davis house names as Robert ARNETTE, Alexander BLADE, E.K. JARVIS, Warren KASTEL and S.M. TENNESHAW; Blade and Tenneshaw were used also on collaborations with Garrett, as were Richard GREER, Clyde MITCHELL, Leonard G. SPENCER and Gerald VANCE. Silverberg wrote 1 story in collaboration with his 1st wife Barbara; The Mutant Season (1989), a novel developed from one of his short stories by his 2nd wife (from 1987) Karen HABER, was published as a collaboration. Later volumes were by Haber alone.He also published 3 "collaborations" with Isaac ASIMOV, developing full-length novels from classic Asimov short stories: these are Nightfall (1941 ASF; exp 1990 UK; vt The Ugly Little Boy 1992 US), Child of Time (1958 Gal as "Lastborn"; vt "The Ugly Little Boy"; exp 1991 UK) and The Positronic Man (in Stellar, anth 1976, ed Judy-Lynn DEL REY as "The Bicentennial Man"; exp 1992 UK).The most notable novels of RS's early period are Master of Life and Death (1957 dos), a novel dealing with institutionalized measures to combat OVERPOPULATION, Invaders from Earth (1958 dos), a drama of political corruption involved with the COLONIZATION of Ganymede, and Recalled to Life (1958 Infinity; 1962; rev 1972), which investigates the social response to a method of reviving the newly dead. The Nidorian series, which he wrote with Garrett as Robert Randall - The Shrouded Planet (fixup 1957) and The Dawning Light (1959) - is also interesting.As the magazine market shrank, in 1959 RS virtually abandoned sf for some years. The majority of the sf books he published 1960-66 were rewritten from work originally done in 1957-9. His output was prodigious, but somewhat mechanical, except for a handful of nonfiction books - notably The Golden Dream (1967) and Mound-Builders of Ancient America (1968), which were painstakingly researched and carefully written.A new phase of RS's career, in which he brought the full range of his artistic abilities to bear on writing sf, began with Thorns (1967), a stylized novel of alienation and psychic vampirism, and Hawksbill Station (1968; vt The Anvil of Time 1969 UK), in which political exiles are sent back in time to a Cambrian prison camp; this full-length version should not be confused with the novelette version, Hawksbill Station (1967 Gal; 1990 chap dos). The Masks of Time (1968; vt Vornan-19 1970 UK) describes a visit by an enigmatic time traveller to the world of 1999. The Man in the Maze (1969) is a dramatization of the problems of alienation, based on the Greek myth of Philoctetes, the hero whose wound makes him both necessary and repulsive. Nightwings (fixup 1969) is a lyrical account of the conquest of a senescent Earth by ALIENS, which culminates with the rebirth of its hero; it should not be confused with the Hugo-winning novella which contributed to the fixup, Nightwings (1968 Gal; 1989 chap dos). Up the Line (1969) is a clever TIME-PARADOX story. Downward to the Earth (1970) is a story of repentance and rebirth, with calculated echoes of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (1902) and strong religious imagery ( RELIGION). Tower of Glass (1970) also makes use of religious imagery in its study of the obsessional construction of a new "Tower of Babel" and the struggle of an ANDROID race to win emancipation. A TIME OF CHANGES (1971) describes a society in which selfhood is a cardinal sin. Son of Man (1971) is a surreal evolutionary fantasy of the FAR FUTURE. The World Inside (fixup 1971) is a study of life under conditions of high population density. The Second Trip (1972) is an intense psychological novel describing the predicaments of a telepathic girl and a man who has been newly created in the body of an "erased" criminal. The Book of Skulls (1971) is a painstaking analysis of relationships among 4 young men on a competitive quest for IMMORTALITY. Dying Inside (1972) is a brilliant study of a telepath losing his power. The Stochastic Man (1975) is a complementary study of a man developing the power to foresee the future. Shadrach in the Furnace (1976) concerns the predicament of the personal physician of a future dictator who finds his identity in jeopardy. After writing the last-named, RS quit writing for 4 years, ostensibly because of his disenchantment with the functioning of the sf marketplace, where his books seemed to him to be suffering "assassination" as they were allowed to go out of print after a few months; sheer exhaustion may also have been a factor.In view of the sustained quality of this astonishing burst of creativity, it is perhaps surprising that only one of these full-length works won a major award in the USA - A TIME OF CHANGES ( NEBULA). Several better novels, most notably Dying Inside, went unrewarded, perhaps because the voters found them too intense and too uncompromising in their depictions of anguish and desperation. RS did, however, win awards for several shorter pieces: the novella Nightwings won a Hugo, and Nebulas went to "Passengers" (1968), a story about people who temporarily lose control of their bodies to alien invaders, "Good News from the Vatican" (1970), about the election of the first ROBOT pope, and the brilliant novella Born with the Dead (1974; 1988 chap dos), about relationships between the living and the beneficiaries of a scientific technique guaranteeing life after death. The novella "The Feast of St Dionysus" (1972), about the experience of religious ecstasy, won a Jupiter award; it became the lead title of one of his finest collections, The Feast of St Dionysus (coll 1975), which also includes "Schwartz Between the Galaxies" (1974). In addition to his award-winners RS published a great deal of excellent short fiction during this second phase of his career. Particularly notable are "To See the Invisible Man" (1963), assembled in Earth's Other Shadow (coll 1973), "Sundance" (1969), assembled in The Cube Root of Uncertainty (coll 1970), and "In Entropy's Jaws" (1971), assembled in The Reality Trip and Other Implausibilities (coll 1972). Other collections assembling material from this period include The Calibrated Alligator (coll 1969), Dimension Thirteen (coll 1969), Parsecs and Parables (coll 1970), Moonferns and Starsongs (coll 1971), Unfamiliar Territory (coll 1973), Sundance and Other Science Fiction Stories (coll 1974), Born with the Dead (coll 1974), Sunrise on Mercury (coll 1975), The Best of Robert Silverberg (coll 1976) and The Best of Robert Silverberg, Volume Two (coll 1978), Capricorn Games (coll 1976), The Shores of Tomorrow (coll 1976), The Songs of Summer and Other Stories (coll 1979 UK), and Beyond the Safe Zone: The Collected Short Fiction of Robert Silverberg (coll 1986).RS returned to writing with Lord Valentine's Castle (1980), a polished but rather languid HEROIC FANTASY set on the world of Majipoor, where he also set the shorter pieces - including The Desert of Stolen Dreams (1981 chap) - collected in The Majipoor Chronicles (coll of linked stories 1982). The addition of Valentine Pontifex (1983), a sequel to the novel, converted the series into a trilogy of sorts. In the mid 1990s, beginning with The Mountains of Majipoor (1995 UK), several new volumes were projected. Almost all of RS's work of the 1980s was in the same relaxed vein: the psychological intensity of his mid-period work was toned down, and much of his sf was evidently pitched towards what RS considered to be the demands of the market. His work of this period has been commercially successful, but the full-length sf often seems rather mechanical; the historical novels Lord of Darkness (1983) and Gilgamesh the King (1984) appear to have been projects dearer to his heart. The gypsy king in Star of Gypsies (1986), waiting in self-imposed exile for his one-time followers to realize how badly they need him, might be reckoned an ironic self-portrait. The best works of this third phase of RS's career are novellas, most notably Sailing to Byzantium (1985), winner of a 1985 Nebula, and The Secret Sharer (1988), a sciencefictionalization of CONRAD's 1912 story of the same title. RS also won Hugo awards in this period for the novella "Gilgamesh in the Outback" (1986), which was a sequel to Gilgamesh the King and was integrated into To the Land of the Living (fixup 1989), and the novelette "Enter a Soldier. Later, Enter Another" (1989). His recent work includes the first 2 vols of the New Springtime trilogy about the repopulation of Earth by various races (not including humans) after a future ice age - At Winter's End (1988; vt Winter's End 1990 UK) and The Queen of Springtime (1989 UK; vt The New Springtime 1990 US) - a novel about humans living as exiles on a watery world after the destruction of Earth, The Face of the Waters (1991 UK); and Hot Sky at Midnight (fixup 1994), a tale which, set in the early years of the 21st century, is told in a tone of searingly bleak pessimism increasingly to be encountered in sf writers in their late prime as the millennium approaches. Much of his short fiction of this period is assembled in The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (coll 1984),The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg: Volume One: Pluto in the Morning Light (coll 1992 UK; vt The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg: Volume One: Secret Sharers 1992 US) and The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg: Volume Two: The Secret Sharer (coll 1993 UK; cut 1993 US). He remains one of the most imaginative and versatile writers ever to have been involved with sf. His productivity has seemed almost superhuman, and his abrupt metamorphosis from a writer of standardized pulp fiction into a prose artist was an accomplishment unparalleled within the field.As an editor, RS was responsible for an excellent series of original ANTHOLOGIES, NEW DIMENSIONS (see listing below). In collaboration with Haber he has taken over the UNIVERSE series once ed Terry CARR, relaunching the title with Universe 1 (anth 1990),Universe 2 (anth 1992) and Universe 3 (anth 1994). He has also been a prolific compiler of ORIGINAL ANTHOLOGIES that comprise 3 novellas, and has edited many reprint anthologies, recently doing much of this kind of work in collaboration with Martin H. GREENBERG. RS was president of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA 1967-8. The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION published a special issue devoted to him in Apr 1974. An autobiographical essay appeared in Hell's Cartographers (anth 1975) ed Brian W. ALDISS and Harry HARRISON. [BS]Other works: The 13th Immortal (1957 dos); Aliens from Space (1958) as by David Osborne; Invisible Barriers (1958) as by Osborne; Lest We Forget Thee, Earth (fixup 1958 dos) as by Calvin M. Knox; Starhaven (1958) as by Ivar Jorgenson; Stepsons of Terra (1958 dos); The Planet Killers (1959 dos); The Plot against Earth (1959 dos) as by Knox; Starman's Quest (1959); Lost Race of Mars (1960); Collision Course (1961); Next Stop the Stars (coll 1962 dos); The Seed of Earth (1962 dos); The Silent Invaders (1958 Infinity as by Knox; exp 1963 dos; with "Valley beyond Time" added, as coll 1985); Godling, Go Home! (coll 1964); One of Our Asteroids is Missing (1964 dos) as by Knox; Regan's Planet (1964); Time of the Great Freeze (1964); Sex Machine (1964) as by Dan Elliot; Conquerors from the Darkness (1957 Science Fiction Adventures as "Spawn of the Deadly Sea"; 1965); To Worlds Beyond (coll 1965); Needle in a Timestack (coll 1966; rev 1967 UK); The Gate of Worlds (1967); Planet of Death (1967); Those who Watch (1967); The Time-Hoppers (1956 Infinity as "Hopper"; exp 1967); To Open the Sky (fixup 1967); Across a Billion Years (1969); Three Survived (1957; exp 1969); To Live Again (1969); World's Fair 1992 (1970); Valley beyond Time (coll 1973); Unfamiliar Territory (coll 1973); A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (omni 1981); World of a Thousand Colors (coll 1982); Tom O'Bedlam (1985); Nightwings (graph 1985), an adaptation in GRAPHIC-NOVEL form; Project Pendulum (1987), a juvenile; In Another Country (1990 chap dos) with C.L. MOORE's Vintage Season (1946), to which it is a sequel; Lion Time in Timbuctoo (1990); Letters from Atlantis (1990); Thebes of the Hundred Gates (1991); Kingdoms of the Wall (1992 UK).Omnibuses: A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (omni 1970 UK), assembling Master of Life and Death, Invaders from Earth and The Time-Hoppers; Science Fiction Special (30): Invaders from Earth; The Best of Robert Silverberg (omni 1978 UK); Conquerors from the Darkness, and Master of Life and Death (omni 1979); Invaders from Earth, and To Worlds Beyond (omni 1980); A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (omni 1981), assembling The Man in the Maze, Nightwings and Downward to the Earth; The Masks of Time/Born with the Dead/Dying Inside (omni 1988); Three Novels: The World Inside/Thorns/Downward to the Earth (omni 1988); The Book of Skulls/Nightwings/Dying Inside (omni 1991).Nonfiction: Drug Themes in Science Fiction (1974 chap).As Editor: Earthmen and Strangers (anth 1966); Voyagers in Time (anth 1967), Men and Machines (anth 1968); Dark Stars (anth 1969); Three for Tomorrow (anth 1969; UK edn credits Arthur C. CLARKE as ed); Tomorrow's Worlds (anth 1969); The Ends of Time (anth 1970); Great Short Novels of Science Fiction (anth 1970); The Mirror of Infinity (anth 1970); Worlds of Maybe (anth 1970); The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol 1 (anth 1970); To the Stars (anth 1971); Four Futures (anth 1971); Mind to Mind (anth 1971); The Science Fiction Bestiary (anth 1971); Beyond Control (anth 1972); Invaders from Space (anth 1972); The Day the Sun Stood Still (anth 1972); Chains of the Sea (anth 1973); Other Dimensions (anth 1973); Three Trips in Time and Space (anth 1973); No Mind of Man (anth 1973); Deep Space (anth 1973); Threads of Time (anth 1974); Mutants (1974); Infinite Jests (anth 1974); Windows into Tomorrow (anth 1974); The Aliens (anth 1976); Epoch (anth 1975) with Roger ELWOOD; The New Atlantis (anth 1975); Strange Gifts (anth 1975); Explorers of Space (anth 1975); The Crystal Ship (anth 1976); The Aliens (anth 1976); The Infinite Web (anth 1977); Earth is the Strangest Planet (anth 1977); Trips in Time (anth 1977); Triax (anth 1977); Galactic Dreamers: Science Fiction as Visionary Literature (anth 1977); The Androids are Coming (anth 1979); Lost Worlds, Unknown Horizons (anth 1978); The Edge of Space (anth 1979); Car Sinister (anth 1979) with Martin H. Greenberg and Joseph D. OLANDER; Dawn of Time: Prehistory through Science Fiction (anth 1979) with Greenberg and Olander; The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (anth 1980; cut vt Great Science Fiction of the 20th Century 1987) with Greenberg; The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels (anth 1980; cut vt Worlds Imagined 1988) with Greenberg; The Science Fictional Dinosaur (anth 1982) with Greenberg and Charles G. WAUGH; The Best of Randall Garrett (coll 1982); The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction Masterpieces (anth 1983; cut vt Great Tales of Science Fiction 1988) with Greenberg; The Fantasy Hall of Fame (anth 1983; vt The Mammoth Book of Fantasy All-Time Greats 1988 UK) with Greenberg; Nebula Award Winners 18 (anth 1983); The Time Travelers: A Science Fiction Quartet (anth 1985) with Greenberg; Neanderthals (anth 1987) with Greenberg and Waugh; Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder (anth 1987); Time Gate (anth 1989); Time Gate 2: Dangerous Interfaces (anth 1990); Beyond the Gate of Worlds (anth 1991); The Horror Hall of Fame (anth 1991) with Greenberg; The Ultimate Dinosaur (anth 1992) with Byron PREISS; Murasaki (anth 1992) with Greenberg (uncredited), assembling stories set in an elaborated crafted shared world.Series: The Alpha sequence of anthologies, comprising Alpha One (anth 1970), Two (anth 1971), Three (anth 1972), Four (anth 1973), Five (anth 1974), Six (anth 1975), 7 (anth 1977), 8 (anth 1977) and 9 (anth 1978); the New Dimensions sequence of original anthologies, comprising New Dimensions I (anth 1971), #2 (anth 1972), #3 (anth 1973), #4 (anth 1974), #5 (anth 1975), #6 (anth 1976), #7 (anth 1977), #8 (anth 1978), #9 (anth 1979), #10 (anth 1980), #11 (anth 1980) with Marta RANDALL and #12 (anth 1981) with Randall, plus The Best of New Dimensions (anth 1979).About the author: Robert Silverberg: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1983) and Robert Silverberg (1983 chap), both by Thomas D. CLARESON.See also: ACE BOOKS; ALTERNATE WORLDS; ANTHROPOLOGY; APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); ARTS; BLACK HOLES; CHILDREN'S SF; CITIES; COMICS; COMPUTERS; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; DC COMICS; DYSTOPIAS; END OF THE WORLD; ENTROPY; ESCHATOLOGY; ESP; EVOLUTION; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; GALACTIC EMPIRES; GODS AND DEMONS; HIVE-MINDS; INTELLIGENCE; INVASION; INVISIBILITY; JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD; JUPITER; MATHEMATICS; MATTER TRANSMISSION; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; MESSIAHS; METAPHYSICS; MILFORD SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS' CONFERENCE; MONSTERS; MUSIC; MYTHOLOGY; NEW WAVE; PARALLEL WORLDS; PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS; PASTORAL; PERCEPTION; PLANETARY ROMANCE; POLITICS; PSYCHOLOGY; REINCARNATION; ROBERT HALE LIMITED; SEX; SHARED WORLDS; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE OPERA; SUN; SUPERMAN; TIME TRAVEL; TRANSPORTATION; UNDER THE SEA; WOMEN SF WRITERS; WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST. SIM, DAVE (1958- ) US artist and writer, creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, the abrasive and perverse eponymous star of a satirical COMIC book originally intended as a pastiche of Robert E. HOWARD's Conan the Barbarian, and which has lampooned a number of the leading characters of the HEROIC-FANTASY genre. Published by DS himself, the comic book has become so popular that Cerebus #1 (Dec 1977) is reputed now to be worth several hundred times its original $1 cover price. Much of the series is available in reprint assemblage, beginning with Cerebus (graph coll 1987). DS's early style was heavily influenced by Barry Windsor-Smith. The comic book features characters such as Elrod of Melvinbone, Bran Mak Mufin and Wolveroach. DS's stated ambition is to complete the projected 6000pp of Cerebus the Aardvark in AD2004. [RT] SIMAK, CLIFFORD D(ONALD) (1904-1988) US writer whose primary occupation 1929-76 was newspaper work, and who became a full-time writer of sf only after his retirement. He was, however, a prolific and increasingly popular sf figure - after a false start in 1931 - from the true beginning of his career in 1938. His first published stories, beginning with "The World of the Red Sun" for Wonder Stories in 1931, were unremarkable, though significantly that first tale deals with TIME TRAVEL, which became his favourite sf device for the importation of ALIENS into rural Wisconsin, always his favourite venue. Apart from 1 novelette, The Creator (1935 Marvel Tales; 1946 chap), he published no sf 1932-8; then, inspired by John W. CAMPBELL Jr's editorial policy at ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION, he began to produce such stories as "Rule 18" and "Reunion on Ganymede" (both 1938). He swiftly followed with his first full-length novel, Cosmic Engineers (1939 ASF; rev 1950), a Galaxy-spanning epic in the vein of E.E. SMITH and Edmond HAMILTON. He continued to write steadily for Campbell, and his work gradually became identifiably Simakian - constrained, nostalgic, intensely emotional beneath a calmly competent generic surface. Stories like "Rim of the Deep" (1940), "Tools" (1942) and "Hunch" (1943) were signs of this development, though the full CDS did not "arrive" until the appearance of "City" and its sequel, "Huddling Place" (both 1944). These tales concerned the NEAR-FUTURE exodus of mankind from the CITIES and the return to a PASTORAL existence aided by a benign technology. As the series progresses, the planet is abandoned by all humans except the reclusive Websters; and Jenkins, an excellently depicted ROBOT, is left to monitor the forced EVOLUTION of intelligent dogs, who are destined to inherit the Earth. As CITY (fixup 1952; exp 1981) the sequence won an INTERNATIONAL FANTASY AWARD. It remains CDS's best known work.In 1950 he found another market in the new magazine GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, which serialized his novel Time and Again (1951; vt First He Died 1953). A trickily plotted time-travel story, it proved to be very popular - though ominously prefiguring some of his over-plotted works of the late 1970s. Also of strong interest is Ring Around the Sun (1953), which involves the discovery of a chain of PARALLEL WORLDS and the machinations of a secret society of mutants who are plotting to subvert the world's economy by producing everlasting goods. Its anti-urban and pro-agrarian sentiments were by now a standard part of CDS's work; in stories like "Neighbors" (1954) he became sf's leading spokesman for rural, Midwestern values. His stories in general contain little violence and much folk humour, and stress the value of individualism tempered by compassion - "good neighbourliness", in short. Throughout the 1950s, he produced dozens of competent short stories, many assembled in Strangers in the Universe (coll 1956; with 4 stories cut 1957; with 4 different stories cut 1958 UK), The Worlds of Clifford Simak (coll 1960; with 6 stories cut 1961; with 3 stories cut, vt Aliens for Neighbours 1961 UK; text restored in 2 vols, vt The Worlds of Clifford Simak 1961 US and Other Worlds of Clifford Simak 1962 US) and All the Traps of Earth (coll 1962; with 3 stories cut 1963; text restored in 2 vols, vt All the Traps of Earth 1964 UK and The Night of the Puudly 1964 UK). Two highpoints were the stories "The Big Front Yard" (1958), which won a 1959 HUGO, and "A Death in the House" (1959). Many of these tales appear in the retrospective Skirmish: The Great Short Fiction (coll 1977). After 1960 CDS began to produce novels at the rate of roughly one a year. Time is the Simplest Thing (1961) and They Walked Like Men (1962) are workmanlike and entertaining, but WAY STATION (1963), which won the 1964 Hugo, more impressively concerns a lonely farmer given IMMORTALITY in return for his services as a galactic station-master, his house having been made into a way-station for aliens who teleport from star to star. Its warmth, imaginative detail and finely rendered bucolic scenes make this probably CDS's best novel. All Flesh is Grass (1965), Why Call them Back from Heaven? (1967) and The Werewolf Principle (1967) are enjoyable, if essentially repetitive. The Goblin Reservation (1968) seemed at first glance to be innovative, striking out into new territory; but in fact it turned out to be the old Wisconsin-valley fantasy in a new and whimsical guise. CDS had always wrestled with such whimsy - notoriously paired with nostalgia in many authors - and by the start of the 1970s whimsy seemed to be winning. Its triumph may have derived from the fact that the venues for which CDS felt genuine emotion were now 40 years gone, and the world had irrevocably repudiated and scummed over the rural simplicities dear to his heart; however, this cannot excuse his sentimental sidestepping of change. Novels like Destiny Doll (1971), Cemetery World (cut 1973; text restored 1983), Enchanted Pilgrimage (1975), Shakespeare's Planet (1976), Mastodonia (1978; vt Catface 1978 UK), Special Deliverance (1982), Where the Evil Dwells (1982) and Highway of Eternity (1986; vt Highway to Eternity 1987 UK), his last novel, contain only flashes of the old talent, mingled with a good deal of sheer silliness. There were exceptions. A Choice of Gods (1972) is an elegiac tale in which CDS reiterated the plainsong of his favourite themes: the depopulated world, the sage old man, the liberated robots, the "haunted" house, teleporting to the stars, etc. A Heritage of Stars (1977), a quest novel set in a post-technological society, is another compendium of CDS's old material. Though he seemed generally to need the relative discipline of sf to achieve his best effects, The Fellowship of the Talisman (1978) is an effective FANTASY. The Visitors (1980), in which aliens once again visit Earth bearing enigmatic gifts, may be his finest late novel, for a vein of irony is allowed some play. The strengths of Project Pope (1981), about the devising of an AI to serve as the ultimate pope, are somewhat vitiated by CDS's visible reluctance to understand COMPUTERS.CDS's late short stories are less mixed, and the tales assembled in The Marathon Photograph and Other Stories (coll 1986 UK), including the Hugo- and Nebula-winning "Grotto of the Dancing Deer" (1980), retain all the skill and much of the emotional saliency of his prime. He was a man of strong moral convictions and little real concern for ideas, and surprisingly for a man of such professional attainments he rarely tended to stray outside his natural bailiwick. Wisconsin in about 1925 - or any extraterrestrial venue demonstrating the same rooted virtues - was that true home, and when he was in residence CDS reigned as the pastoral king of his genre. He received the NEBULA Grand Master Award in 1977. [DP/JC]Other works: Empire (1951); The Trouble with Tycho (1961 chap dos); Worlds without End (coll 1964); Best Science Fiction Stories of Clifford Simak (coll 1967 UK); So Bright the Vision (coll 1968 dos); Out of their Minds (1969); Our Children's Children (1974); The Best of Clifford D. Simak (coll 1975 UK); 4 collections ed Francis Lyall, being Brother and Other Stories (coll 1986 UK), Off-Planet (coll 1988 UK), The Autumn Land and Other Stories (coll 1990 UK) and Immigrant and Other Stories (coll 1991 UK); The Creator and Other Stories (coll 1993 UK), the title story being the same text as the 1946 pamphlet.As Editor: Nebula Award Stories 6 (anth 1971); The Best of Astounding (anth 1978).About the author: "Clifford D. Simak" by Sam MOSKOWITZ, in Seekers of Tomorrow (1966); Clifford D. Simak: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1949) by Muriel R. Becker.See also: ANDROIDS; ARTS; ASTEROIDS; COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; COMMUNICATIONS; CRYONICS; DIMENSIONS; ECOLOGY; ECONOMICS; ESCHATOLOGY; ESP; GALACTIC EMPIRES; GAMES AND SPORTS; GENERATION STARSHIPS; GODS AND DEMONS; GOLDEN AGE OF SF; JUPITER; LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; LONGEVITY (IN WRITERS AND PUBLICATIONS); MACHINES; MARS; MATTER TRANSMISSION; MERCURY; MESSIAHS; MONEY; MOON; MYTHOLOGY; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM; OUTER PLANETS; PARALLEL WORLDS; PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS; POLLUTION; RELIGION; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE OPERA; SPACESHIPS; SUN; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES; VENUS. SIMMONS, DAN (1948- ) US writer, for many years a teacher of gifted children, who began publishing with "The River Styx Runs Upstream" for Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1982, and who was for some time best regarded as an author of tales of HORROR, some of which - along with sf and FANTASY stories - were assembled in Prayers to Broken Stones (coll 1990). True to the instincts of that genre, his first novel, Song of Kali (1985), rendered modern-day Calcutta as a moral and psychic cesspool, into which the protagonists of the book sink very deep indeed as unleashed evil from the world's ancient heart threatens to flood the 1980s. His second novel, the immense Carrion Comfort (1983 Omni; much exp 1989), is also horror, though with an sf underpinning, and as such its basic premise is un-new. The "carrion-eaters" of the title are MUTANT humans who have acquired the capacity to control other humans through direct psychic access to their hind-brains, while at the same time feasting psychically on the experiences into which they force their victims. True to the dictates of the horror genre - to which Simmons remains astonishingly faithful for nearly 500,000 words - his mutants soon decay into lovers of pain and death, and the protagonists of the book must attempt to exploit divisions among these puppet masters. Their survival seems genuinely triumphant, though the sole surviving vampire is preparing to start WWIII.However, despite the haunting rationality of this tale, DS's later work is of much greater sf interest. Phases of Gravity (1989) is not sf, being instead - if one is able to ignore a moment or two of muffled transcendence - perhaps the first historical novel by an sf author about the space programme, recounting the psychic rejuvenation of a grounded astronaut. But HYPERION (1989) - which won a 1990 HUGO - and The Fall of Hyperion (1990) - 2 vols which together, under the preferred title Hyperion Cantos (omni 1990), clearly make a single novel - are genuine, full-blown METAPHYSICAL sf. Over a SPACE-OPERA structure - ages after a BLACK HOLE has destroyed Old Earth, the Galaxy is dominated by a vast human hegemony knit together by ANSIBLE-like fatlines and farcasters that plumb discontinuities in space - an extremely complex narrative engages with many themes, including religious quests, TIME TRAVEL, CYBERSPACE, ECOLOGY, bioengineering and much else. In the first volume, which is structured after Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, 7 "pilgrims" have been called to the planet Hyperion, where the time-travelling Shrike which guards the Time Tombs promises some dreadful transcendence; en route they tell tales which reveal their significant life-experiences (one of these tales, "Remembering Siri", was first published separately in 1983), each tale being recounted in a different sf idiom, and each contributing to the growing mosaic of the overall story, described by John CLUTE as a space opera about the end of things, an "entelechy opera" or tale of cosmogony. Every member of the cast bears a secret burden, and each burden expands in significance as the surviving protagonists arrive on Hyperion and engage more and more deeply with the Keatsian implications of their mission (the two sections of Hyperion Cantos take the titles of Keats's long but incomplete poems about the displacement of the old gods, the victory of a new pantheon). Meanwhile, wars and apocalypse and ENTROPY threaten the entire Galaxy. The AIS that run everything turn out to inhabit the quantum-level interstices of the farcaster net - just as does the AI who tends to dominate Orson Scott CARD's Xenocide (1991) - and the end of the Universe will depend upon which AI faction is able to corner for itself the significance of Hyperion, the Shrike, and the human saintliness which begins to invest activities there.As a compendium and culminating presentation of GENRE SF's devices and deep impulses, Hyperion Cantos is perhaps definitive for the 1980s. In one novel, DS became one of the half-dozen central figures of that decade. A slight sentimentality about children and a love of generic competence for its own sake only slightly modify the sense of excitement generated by his arrival on the scene, though his two 1992 novels may have calmed that excitement to some degree. The Hollow Man (1982 Omni as "Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams"; much exp 1992), though pure sf in its rationale, is structured (somewhat stiffly) to reflect the metaphysical journey of DANTE ALIGHIERI's protagonist in La Divina Commedia (written c1304-21), containing ample references as well to the poetry of T.S. Eliot (1888-1965). It deals with a tortured man whose ESP powers are explained in terms of quantum physics and Chaos-theory mathematics; a longish horror story is implanted in its midst. Children of the Night (1992) - which features a priest who had appeared as a child in Summer of Night (1991), a Stephen- KING-like tale of supernatural horror - rationalizes the vampire novel, and is a pure-sf thriller in its AIDS-related story of Romanian vampires, led by the still-living Vlad Dracula, whose condition turns out to be a hereditary immune deficiency curable by the intake of human blood. The novel arguably trivializes the agonies of post-Ceausescu Romania and of AIDS by linking them to vampirism, and does not fully justify DS's return to themes he had already used so forcefully in Carrion Comfort. And Fires of Eden (1994), a horror novel with supernatural elements set in 19th and 20th century Hawaii, quite as fully overmaster his material as initially he was inclined to. There is an intellectual chill about all three novels, which are well crafted but dispassionate, suggesting that for the moment at least DS is marking time. [JC]Other works: Entropy's Bed at Midnight (1990 chap); Banished Dreams (1990 chap); Going After the Rubber Chicken (coll 1991 chap), 3 cogent after-dinner speeches; Summer Sketches (coll 1992), nonfiction.About the author: "The True and Blushful Chutzpah" by John Clute, Interzone #38, 1990.See also: CLICHES; COMMUNICATIONS; CYBERNETICS; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; GALACTIC EMPIRES; GODS AND DEMONS; GOTHIC SF; PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS; REINCARNATION; RELIGION; SPACE FLIGHT; VILLAINS. SIMMONS, GEOFFREY (1943- ) US writer and medical doctor whose first sf novel, The Adam Experiment (1978), set in an orbital space lab, features an experiment in human procreation which runs up against the fact that ALIENS have been monitoring Homo sapiens and will not permit us to breed off-planet. Pandemic (1980) is a medical sf thriller; Murdock (1983), a heavily plotted tale involving CRYOGENICS, again makes some effective use of GS's medical expertise. [JC] SIMON, ERIK [r] GERMANY. SIMPSON, HELEN (de GUERRY) (1897-1940) UK novelist, the last and longest section of whose The Woman on the Beast (1933) is set in 1999, when a woman anarchist becomes ruler of the world with apocalyptic intentions, including the purificatory abolition of all reading. [JC] SIMS, D(ENISE) N(ATALIE) [r] ROBERT HALE LIMITED. SINCLAIR, ANDREW (ANNANDALE) (1935- ) UK writer of much fiction and nonfiction. His The Project (1960) comes as close to nuclear HOLOCAUST as possible - a doomsday weapon is just about to go off as the final page ends - without actually meeting the END OF THE WORLD head-on. AS remains best known for his Gog sequence - Gog (1967), Magog (1972) and King Ludd (1988) - a FABULATION about the Matter of Britain which is half sentimental SATIRE and half mythopoesis. [JC] SINCLAIR, IAIN (MacGREGOR) (1943- ) UK poet and novelist whose Lud Heat: A Book of the Dead Hamlets (1975) is a narrative prose-poem which fabricates a numerological myth of the geography of London; it provided a direct inspiration for Peter ACKROYD's Hawksmoor (1985). A novel, Downriver (Or, the Vessels of Wrath): A Narrative in Twelve Tales (1991), develops similar material in a FABULATION which combines detective modes and NEAR-FUTURE sf visions of the complex destiny of London. Radon Daughters: A Voyage, Between Art and Terror, from the Mound of Whitechapel to the Limestone Pavements of the Burren (1994) covers similar territory in an ornately constructed fantasia based on a perhaps non-existent sequel to William Hope HODGSON's The House on the Borderland (1908), but also includes an elaborately ironic description of an sf convention. [JC] SINCLAIR, MICHAEL Michael SHEA. SINCLAIR, UPTON (BEALL) (1878-1968) US writer known primarily for his work outside the sf field, particularly for his novels of social criticism, including The Jungle (1905). His most notable sf work is the comedy The Millennium: A Comedy of the Year 2000 (1914 Appeal to Reason; in 3 vols 1924), based on a play, in which the survivors of a DISASTER recapitulate the economic stages described by the Marxist theory of history. In Prince Hagen (1903; play 1921) a Nibelung ruler acknowledges that US capitalists are his superiors in avarice. The Industrial Republic: A Study of the America of Ten Years Hence (1907) is a utopian fantasy. Roman Holiday (1931) is an interesting and curiously bittersweet account of a delusional timeslip in which an industrialist discovers parallels between his own time and a nascent Roman republic which cannot anticipate the indignities that history has in store for it. US's lighter political satires include the documentary future histories I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty (1933) and We, People of America, and How We Ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future (1934). He also wrote a number of religious fantasies in which MESSIAH figures are frustrated by the injustices of the modern world: They Call me Carpenter (1922) is a delusional fantasy starring Jesus; Our Lady (1938) is an effective timeslip story which brings the Blessed Virgin to contemporary California; and What Didymus Did (1954 UK; vt It Happened to Didymus 1958 US) is a dispirited account of the failure of a reluctant miracle-worker commissioned by Heaven to spread spiritual enlightenment in an unappreciative world. [BS]Other works: Plays of Protest (coll 1912) includes Prince Hagen and a play featuring a female noble savage, The Naturewoman; Co-op: A Novel of Living Together (1936 UK); The Gnomobile (1936), a juvenile filmed by Disney as The Gnome-Mobile (1967); A Giant's Strength: A Three-Act Drama of the Atomic Bomb (1947), a post- HOLOCAUST play.See also: BOYS' PAPERS; ECONOMICS; POLITICS; THEATRE. SINYAVSKY, ANDREY (DONATOVICH) (1925- ) Russian dissident writer and literary critic who published the manuscripts he smuggled into the West in the late 1950s and early 1960s under the name Abram Tertz. His identity became known when the Soviet authorities arrested him in 1966 and subjected him, along with his friend and fellow dissident Yuli DANIEL (who wrote as Nikolai Arzhak), to a show trial; both were imprisoned and subsequently exiled. Several of AS's "fantastic stories" are of sf interest, most being assembled in Fantasticheskiye Povesti (coll 1961 Paris; trans Max Hayward and R. Hingley as The Icicle and Other Stories 1963 UK; vt Fantastic Stories 1963 US), though the most striking of all, "Pkhentz" (trans 1966; Russian text in Fantasticheski Mir Abrama Tertza, coll 1967 US), was only later smuggled to the West. In this story an ALIEN spaceship crashes in Russia leaving only one survivor, who is forced to exist for years in a desperate limbo under a false identity, passing for an ordinary citizen. "The Icicle" (1961) features a man of whose clairvoyant powers the state makes destructive use in its attempts to control the future. AS's finest novel, Lyubimov (Washington 1964; trans Manya Harari as The Makepeace Experiment 1965 UK), tells with warmth and power of the transformation of a small Russian village through the ability of one man to broadcast his will hypnotically through space; when he loses this power, robot tanks regain the village and he flees. The satirical implications of this allegorical recasting of the triumph of communism in Russia are obvious. At the same time, AS's satirical effects are mediated through an imagination deeply Russian in its metaphysical, fundamentally religious, Slavophile bent; his sf stories are slashing moral fables rather than political diatribes. [JC]Other work: For Freedom of Imagination (coll trans Laszlo Tikos and Murray Peppard 1971 US) contains speculations on the nature of sf.About the author: On Trial: The Case of Sinyavsky (Tertz) and Daniel (Arzhak) (1967) ed Leopold Lebedz and Max Hayward deals largely with AS, and discusses his work in literary as well as political terms.See also: TABOOS. SIODMAK, CURT or KURT (1902- ) German writer/film-director based in Hollywood who began to publish adult stories in Germany as early as 1919, and whose first English-language publication was "The Eggs from Lake Tanganyika" (1926 AMZ), a tale almost certainly translated from an earlier German version. CS entered the film industry in 1929 as a screen-writer; his credits include F.P.1 ANTWORTET NICHT (1932; vt F.P.1 DOESN'T ANSWER; based on his own novel F.P.1 Antwortet Nicht [1932; trans H.W. Farrel as F.P.1 Does not Reply 1933 US; vt F.P.1 Fails to Reply 1933 UK]). He emigrated to the USA in 1937; his US screenplays (some co-authorships) include The Ape (1940), The Invisible Man Returns (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940), Invisible Agent (1942), The Wolf Man (1942), Son of Dracula (1943), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), The LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944; based on his novel Donovan's Brain [1943], subsequently filmed again as DONOVAN'S BRAIN [1953] and VENGEANCE [1963]), The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), RIDERS TO THE STARS (1953) and Creature with the Atom Brain (1955). He also wrote the story for EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956; vt Invasion of the Flying Saucers). Later in his career he also directed films, rather badly, including Bride of the Gorilla (1951), The MAGNETIC MONSTER (1953) and Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956). Although often involved with sf-oriented subjects, he never displayed much understanding for the genre: like other German film-makers of his generation, he was more at home with the GOTHIC (the supernatural, the macabre and the grotesque) than with science, and such science as he introduced tended to be for picturesque atmosphere. Donovan's Brain was parodied in The MAN WITH TWO BRAINS (1983).CS has 35 movie credits in the USA and 18 in Europe. Before emigrating he had 18 novels published in Germany, F.P.1 Does Not Reply being the only one translated into English. His novels in English, aside from Donovan's Brain - his most interesting - are its belated sequel Hauser's Memory (1968), filmed as HAUSER'S MEMORY (1970); Skyport (1959), The Third Ear (1971) and City in the Sky (1974), the last dealing with rebellion in a prison satellite. Riders to the Stars * (1953) was published as by CS and Robert Smith (1920- ), but CS's only connection with it was the original screenplay. Hauser's Memory and The Third Ear both feature spy-thriller plots and absurd experiments carried out by biochemists; Gabriel's Body (1992) is an sf medical thriller. [JB/PN]See also: CYBORGS; PSYCHOLOGY; TRANSPORTATION. SIRIUS Australian critical SEMIPROZINE, subtitled "The Australian Magazine for readers of science fiction, fantasy and the macabre".Announced as quarterly but slightly irregular,test issue #0 Sep 1992, #1 Mar 1993,seven full issues to Mar 1995, A4 format, saddle-stapled, ed Garry Wyatt from Canberra, pubGaslight Books Publications. S contains critical articles, reviews, movie articles,checklists, annual round-ups, etc., some by academics or professional authors, all quiteprofessionally presented, and has confounded sceptics who doubted the market for a $7.50magazine (around 60 pages) in this area, by lasting out its first two years. The intellectual quality,while uneven, is sometimes good. [GF] SIRIUS Magazine. YUGOSLAVIA. SIRIUS VISIONS US SEMIPROZINE, current, #1 1994, published eight times a year "on the ancient Celtic holidays" by Claddagh Press,Portland, Oregon, five issues to Feb 1995, ed Marybeth O'Halloran. SMALL-PRESS 16pp tabloid-format fiction magazine, describing itself as a "magazine of speculative fiction, humorous science fiction, fantasy and visionary fiction",but closer to FANTASY than sf to date. In its first year it published stories by Kristine Kathryn RUSCH, Dean Wesley SMITH, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, among others, some of them sf. [GF] SITWELL, [Sir] OSBERT (1892-1969) UK writer. The title novella in Triple Fugue (coll 1924) posits a 1948 world in which Trotsky is President of Russia and lifespans have been trebled for the rich. The Man who Lost Himself (1929) tells the complex psychological life-story of a man from his youth to his death sometime after the middle of the 20th century. Miracle on Sinai (1933), a discussion novel like several of H.G. WELLS's from this period, is set in a luxury hotel near Mount Sinai and on the Mount itself, where a glowing cloud deposits new Tablets of the Law, which are variously interpreted; in the final chapter a cataclysmic war begins. A Place of One's Own (1941 chap) is a ghost story. Fee Fi Fo Fum!: A Book of Fairy Stories (coll 1959) assembles SATIRES. [JC]See also: TIME PARADOXES. SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, THE US tv series (1973-8). A Silverton and Universal Production for ABC. Executive prods Glen A. LARSON, Harve Bennett, Allan Balter. Prod Michael Gleason, Lionel E. Siegel, Joe L. Cramer, Fred Freiberger. Based on the novel Cyborg (1972) by Martin CAIDIN. The series began as a 90min ABC "Wednesday Movie of the Week" in 1973; 2 more made-for-tv movies followed, then the series: 5 seasons, 100 50min episodes. Colour.Lee Majors plays Steve Austin, a former US Air Force astronaut who, after an accident in an experimental aircraft, has his badly injured body rebuilt with artificial parts (2 legs, 1 arm, 1 eye), becoming a CYBORG, though it is impossible to tell externally which parts are artificial. His unique situation is treated in purely comic-book terms for a presumably juvenile audience. He becomes a latter-day SUPERMAN, able to perform feats of great strength and move at incredible speeds, and is used as a special agent by a CIA-like government organization. The basic premise of the series is technologically absurd - while Austin's bionic arm might be able to withstand lifting huge weights, the leverage would pull the rest of his body apart. The success of the series resulted in a rather better spin-off series, The BIONIC WOMAN . [JB] SKAL, DAVID J(OHN) (1952- ) US writer whose first novel, Scavengers (1980), suggests some sf basis for a plot involving memory transfer in a corrupt world. His second, When We Were Good (1981), evokes a powerful sense of cultural despair in the tale of a sterile world in which genetically engineered hermaphrodites fail to represent an emblem of hope for the terminal remnants of normal humanity. A sense that DJS is by inclination a horror writer was intensified by the entropic dismay evoked by Antibodies (1989), a short accusatory trawl through Californian subcultures, where sf characters emit pretentious twaddle about transcendence and the military-industrial complex conspires to transform pseudo-hippies into spare computer parts; all this is told with a sense of gnawing revulsion. Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of "Dracula" from Novel to Stage to Screen (1990), and The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (1993), are both extremely competent nonfiction studies. [JC]See also: GENETIC ENGINEERING. SKIFFY SCI FI. SKINNER, AINSLIE Pseudonym used by US-born crime writer Paula Gosling (1939- ), resident in the UK, for her sf novel Mind's Eye (1981; vt The Harrowing 1980 US), which convincingly (and often movingly) depicts the scientific testing of a girl possessed of ESP and the realization of the consequences of the fact that this power is transferable to others. [JGr/JC] SKINNER, B(URRHUS) F(REDERICK) (1904-1990) US psychologist and writer whose cogently argued (and just as cogently refuted) brand of behaviourism dominated that theory of PSYCHOLOGY for many years in the USA, and provides the basic tenets for his one work of fiction, Walden Two (1948), depicting a UTOPIA whose inhabitants grow up as successful experiments in behavioural engineering. The title refers, of course, to Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854) by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). Walden Two is conducted in the main as a dialogue between Castle and Frazier, two colleagues of a professor named Burris, a clear stand-in for the author himself. Frazier, who has founded the colony, dismisses - as BFS later did himself in Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972) - the traditional notions of free will, and disparages democratic forms of government; his opponent, Castle, argues for the time-tested liberal solutions to the problems of human happiness. Burris seems neutral, but the colony, with its creches, positive reinforcement regimes and transparently happy residents, is obviously intended to represent the power of Frazier's ideas. [JC]See also: SCIENTIFIC ERRORS; SOCIOLOGY. SKORPIOS, ANTARES James William BARLOW. SKY, KATHLEEN (1943- ) US writer whose first genre story was "One Ordinary Day, with Box" in Generation (anth 1972) ed David GERROLD. She was married to Stephen GOLDIN 1972-82, and wrote with him The Business of Being a Writer (1982). Her debut novel Birthright (1975) speculates emotionally about distinctions between human and ANDROID after GENETIC ENGINEERING has become a common practice. Her other work in the genre has also been romantic, including 2 competent STAR-TREK ties, Vulcan! * (1978) and Death's Angel * (1981), and the separate novels Ice Prison (1976) and Witchdame (1985), the latter being a fantasy, and seemingly #1 in a projected series. [PN] SKYWORLDS US DIGEST-size reprint magazine, subtitled "Classics in Science Fiction" on #1, thereafter "Marvels in Science Fiction". 4 issues Nov 1977-Aug 1978, published by Humorama Inc., New York; ed Jeff Stevens (uncredited). S reprinted mostly from MARVEL SCIENCE STORIES of 1950-52, material badly dated by the 1970s and undistinguished when it had first appeared. Production was terrible. [FHP/PN] SLADEK, JOHN T(HOMAS) (1937- ) US writer who spent two decades in the UK from 1966, becoming involved in the UK NEW-WAVE movement centred on Michael MOORCOCK's NEW WORLDS, and co-editing with Pamela ZOLINE Ronald Reagan: The Magazine of Poetry (2 issues 1968), in which work by both editors, J.G. BALLARD, Thomas M. DISCH and others appeared. In the mid-1980s he returned to Minneapolis, a town which had long supplied local colour to many of his more severely satirical stories, whose protagonists ricochet through their preordained and absurd lives within the vast, hyperbolic flatlands of middle America. This mise en scene, when illuminated by his adept control of the language and pretensions of the modern bureaucratic state, provides a matrix for his best work, and helps make plausible the frequent comparisons that have been drawn between him and Kurt VONNEGUT Jr; but Vonnegut has an easier emotional flow than JTS, while JTS lacks Vonnegut's rhetoric and avoids his excessive simplicity of effect.He began writing sf with "The Happy Breed", published in Harlan ELLISON's DANGEROUS VISIONS (anth 1967), though his first published story was "The Poets of Millgrove, Iowa" for NW in 1966; his first 2 novels - The House that Fear Built (1966 US) with Disch and The Castle and the Key (1967 US) - were GOTHICS, both as by Cassandra Knye. His first sf novel, The Reproductive System (1968; vt MECHASM 1969 US), introduced into his typical small-town-US setting a brilliant maelstrom of sf activity: a self-reproducing technological device goes out of control in passages of allegorical broadness, but everything turns out all right in the end, though not through positive efforts of the inept cast, and a dreamlike UTOPIA looms on the horizon; governing the conniptions of the tale is an obsessive discourse upon and dramatization of the metamorphic relationships between human and ROBOT, a relationship which lies at the centre of all his subsequent solo novels and much of his short fiction. His next book, however, Black Alice (1968 US) with Disch, both as Thom Demijohn, was a mystery novel, not sf. In JTS's next sf book, The Muller-Fokker Effect (1970), a man's character is transferred onto COMPUTER tape, and the dissemination of several copies of this "personality" instigates a series of absurd events ( FABULATION), some of them extremely comic in effect, some horrifying, all mounting to a picture of a USA disintegrated morally and physically by its own surrender to TECHNOLOGY, the profit motive and the ethical falseness that leads to dehumanization. In its questioning of the nature of narrative events and of fiction itself, the book is a significant example of modern US self-analysis at its highly impressive best. In 1970 the book gained little response, and for a decade JTS wrote no more sf novels.Through his career, JTS has written numerous stories whose strenuous formal ingenuity, and whose surreal combining of a deadpan ribaldry and pathos, have made them underground classics of the genre. The most notable of them all, because of its length and impassioned veracity of tone, may be "Masterson and the Clerks" (1967), in which the immolation of its protagonists in the process of a US business is first hilariously then movingly presented; true to the oddly uncommercial course of his career, JTS collected this tale only much later, in Alien Accounts (coll 1982). Previous collections - The Steam-Driven Boy and Other Strangers (coll 1973), which contains several superb parodies of well known sf writers ( SATIRE), and Keep the Giraffe Burning (coll dated 1977 but 1978), selections from both vols being brought together as The Best of John Sladek (coll 1981 US) - tended to assemble stories which, perhaps more formally brilliant than "Masterson", lack something of its human intensity. Later stories were assembled in The Lunatics of Terra (coll 1984), in which the comic melancholy of his early work wears a somewhat calmer guise. During the 1970s, when most of his stories became generally available, JTS published two detective novels, Black Aura (1974) - which contains some borderline-sf elements - and Invisible Green: A thackeray Phin Mystery (1977), as well as a sequence of nonfiction texts of considerable interest. The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Sciences and Occult Beliefs (1973) - all subsequent texts modified under threat of legal action from the Church of Scientology - scathingly anatomizes the various cults and PSEUDO-SCIENCES that exist as a kind of fringe around the sf reader's areas of interest, from SCIENTOLOGY to VON DANIKEN. Arachne Rising: The Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac (1977; vt The Thirteenth Zodiac: The Sign of Arachne 1979 ) as James Vogh, The Cosmic Factor (1978) as James Vogh and Judgement of Jupiter (1980) as Richard A. Tilms were hoax demonstrations of the kind of fringe theorizing that underpins the cults described in The New Apocrypha.JTS then returned to sf with Roderick, or The Education of a Young Machine (1980) and Roderick at Random, or Further Education of a Young Machine (1983), 2 texts conceived as a single novel. The US version, also entitled RODERICK (1982 US), constituted only about two-thirds of the original RODERICK; the publisher had intended to make a trilogy out of the 2-vol novel, but the project foundered, and only the single savagely truncated vol appeared. The novel represents the autobiography of the eponymous robot and is JTS's most ambitious work to date, conveying with considerable ingenuity and some pathos its protagonist's Candide-like innocence and its author's OULIPO-derived numerological sense of narrative structure. Tik-Tok (1983), a thematic pendant which again took its structure from the arbitrary rule-generating principles of oulipo, follows the career of a robot who, once his "asimov circuits" go on the blink, becomes criminally ambitious. Though robots inevitably appear, Bugs (1989 UK) was JTS's first sf novel to feature a "normal" human protagonist; and in its tracing of the deranging experiences of a UK immigrant to a strange Midwestern city the tale could be seen as guardedly autobiographical.As the most formally inventive, the funniest, and very nearly the most melancholy of modern US sf writers, JTS has always addressed the heart of the genre, but never spoken from it. We need his attention: he deserves ours. [JC]Other works: Red Noise (1982 chap US); Flatland (1982 chap US); The Book of Clues (1984), a series of short detective puzzles; Blood and Gingerbread (1990 chap).About the author: A John Sladek Checklist (1984 chap) by Chris DRUMM.See also: ABSURDIST SF; AUTOMATION; BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD; HUMOUR; LEISURE; MACHINES; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; PARANOIA. SLANT UK FANZINE (1948-53) ed from Belfast by Walt Willis. Neatly hand-printed on a small letterpress machine, and containing woodcut illustrations by James WHITE and Bob SHAW, S is best remembered for introducing Irish FANDOM (principally Willis, Shaw and White) to sf fandom at large; it also contained fine pieces of humorous writing (continued in HYPHEN) and featured fiction by authors such as Kenneth BULMER, John BRUNNER, A. Bertram CHANDLER and Shaw. [PR] SLATER, HENRY J. (1879-1963) UK author whose work showed the influence of H.G. WELLS in both Ship of Destiny (1951), where survivors of a HOLOCAUST sail across a drowned world, and The Smashed World (1952), set 3000 years hence in a World State which is destroyed by a reborn Napoleon. Some of HJS's effects oddly prefigure the afterlife fantasies of Philip Jose FARMER. [JC]See also: REINCARNATION. SLATER, PHILIP (ELLIOT) (1927- ) US writer who remains best known for acute analyses of Western culture like The Pursuit of Loneliness (1970) and Earthwalk (1974). His How I Saved the World (1985), about nuclear DISASTER, reiterates in spoof-thriller guise the lessons urged in his nonfiction. [JC] SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE Film (1972). Vanadas/Universal. Dir George Roy Hill, starring Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans, Valerie Perrine. Screenplay Stephen Geller, based on Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade (1969) by Kurt VONNEGUT Jr. 104 mins. Colour.A middle-class, middle-aged American (Sacks), dissatisfied with his job, marriage and life in general, starts to experience sudden shifts in time, mainly back to when he was a PoW in the German city of Dresden before its fire-bombing on a massive scale by the Allies. He later experiences forward shifts in time to when he has become a prisoner of the ALIEN Tralfamadorians, who keep him in a zoo on their planet and provide him with a half-naked Hollywood starlet for company. The novel's ABSURDIST disjunctions between the real horrors of war and the minor horrors of suburban life are arguably satirical, and certainly agonized, though arbitrary; here, with quite extraordinary vulgarity, they become merely flippant, especially in the context of the Tralfamadore sequences, where what is black in the book is merely whimsical in the movie, which nevertheless won a 1973 HUGO. [JB/PN] SLEATOR, WILLIAM (WARNER III) (1945- ) US writer of books for older children. His first novel, Blackbriar (1972), is an occult fantasy. Titles of sf interest include: House of Stairs (1974), an attack on behavioural science and the experiments to which it might lead; Green Futures of Tycho (1981), set in a familiar version of the Solar System; Interstellar Pig (1984), which intermixes gaming ( GAMES AND SPORTS) and ALIEN themes in the tale of a game whose pieces represent moves in a nonhuman conflict; The Boy who Reversed Himself (1986), about travel through the DIMENSIONS at some risk to the lad; The Duplicate (1988), in which a machine CLONES duplicates of a teenaged boy, all of them upset; and Strange Attractors (1990; vt Strange Attractions 1991 UK), a TIME-TRAVEL tale. WS's range is wide, and his recalcitrant protagonists stick doggedly in the reader's memory, but he has a tendency sometimes to accept sf devices without much bothering to examine them, and this in turn thins the texture of reality of his tales. [JC]Other works: Among the Dolls (1975 chap), fantasy; Into the Dream (1979); Fingers (1983); Singularity (1985); The Spirit House (1991); Others See Us (1993). SLEE, RICHARD [r] Cornelia Atwood PRATT. SLEEPER Film (1973). Rollins-Joffe Productions/United Artists. Dir Woody Allen, starring Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory, Don Keefer. Screenplay Allen, Marshall Brickman. 88 mins. Colour.The plot device of having a man from the present suddenly finding himself in the future (this time through CRYONICS) is nearly always used to comment on contemporary society rather than to speculate about the future ( SLEEPER AWAKES). This, one of Allen's best slapstick SATIRES, targets Nixon, health food, beauty contests and revolutionary politics, but it does include genuinely futuristic sf gags involving ROBOTS and robot pets, SEX practices and artificial food (which has to be beaten into submission before it can be served). One of the best sequences involves an attempt to CLONE a new body from the nose of the country's assassinated dictator, the only bit left. Allen is the always-anxious heath-food faddist who cannot come to terms with the future's partiality to pleasure. The film won both HUGO and NEBULA. [JB/PN] SLEEPER AWAKES As the 19th century progressed and the planet became more and more thoroughly explored, authors of UTOPIAS and DYSTOPIAS began to abandon present-day LOST WORLDS and ISLANDS as venues for their ideal societies, and instead to locate their speculations in the future, perhaps hundreds of years hence. Almost always these speculations were framed by prologues (and sometimes epilogues) set at the time the novel was written; this frame served to introduce the protagonist who was to travel into the future and act the role of inquisitive visitor to the new world. The route he (the protagonist was almost always male) generally took seems in retrospect an odd one. Though TIME MACHINES were available to fiction writers before the end of the century, they were rarely used, either by utopian/dystopian speculators or by tellers of tales. Even H.G. WELLS, who conceived perhaps the first imaginatively plausible device in THE TIME MACHINE (1895), did not re-use the idea, even though the notion of an instantaneous trip through time served one essential function for the writer who wished to illuminate the world to come: it brought the then and the now into abrupt and glaring contrast. When Wells came to write his first dystopia, When the Sleeper Wakes (1899; rev vt The Sleeper Awakes 1910), he fell back on the convention of the protagonist who falls asleep in the present day and wakes again in the future. Not for the first time in his career, he did not invent but gave definitive form to (and named, in the vt) a significant sf theme or motif.The sleeper-awakes device shares with TIME TRAVEL, however, the capacity to transit centuries in the turning of a page, so that the essential function of contrast between the then and the now can be retained in exemplary focus. The two most famous late-19th-century utopias in the English language, Edward BELLAMY's Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888) and William MORRIS's News from Nowhere (1890 US), took advantage of the device to sharpen contrasts throughout. Many less famous titles, like Ismar THIUSEN's The Diothas (1883), also utilized it. In his Science Fiction: The Early Years (1991), E.F. BLEILER lists about 40 further novels and stories published before 1930 - by no means all of them utopias or dystopias - which feature an awakened sleeper. Few have retained much popularity, although Alvarado M. FULLER's A.D. 2000 (1890), W.H. HUDSON's A Crystal Age (1887; rev 1906), Horace W.C. NEWTE's The Master Beast (1907; vt The Red Fury 1919) and Edward SHANKS's The People of the Ruins (1920) remain of some interest.It is hard to escape the sense that the sleeper-awakes structure betrayed, even before the beginning of the 20th century, an undue fastidiousness of imagination, and that some straightforward magic (like a time machine) might always have been a more elegant option; even more attractive to the imagination, of course, would have been a story which did not need a time-frame or anchor to make its point about the worlds to come, or to thrill its readers with the new. One of the centrally important accomplishments of GENRE SF has been the abandonment of the anchor of the present day, for most genre sf is set unabashedly in the future, and needs no present-day protagonist to reassure its readers of the imaginative reality of the new worlds. A non-genre writer like J. Leslie MITCHELL might still hint at something along the lines of the device when he sent the eponymous heroine of Gay Hunter (1934) 20,000 years hence, but few sleepers-awake stories appeared in genre sf until the development of the notion of the GENERATION STARSHIP, in the bowels of which might repose thousands of humans in SUSPENDED ANIMATION; and, anyway, here the sleepers tend not to be the protagonists of the tale - it is their shepherds, in the here and now of the narrative, who generally fill that role. Only occasionally - as in Orson Scott CARD's Hot Sleep (fixup 1979) - will a sleeper awake from generation-starship solitude as protagonist in a changed world. Other genre-sf examples of the device either - like Mack REYNOLDS's Looking Backward, from the Year 2000 (1973) - are introduced as a homage, or - as in T.J. BASS's remarkable Half Past Human (fixup 1971) - are integrated into genre pyrotechnics that far transcend the original simplicity of the notion. But these are eccentric examples. When, after 1926, the future became domesticated as a venue for the imagination, the sleeper-awakes tale faded away.There are also many tales in both 19th-century sf and genre sf which feature a figure from the past who awakens into the present. Indeed, this is a far older theme, growing perhaps from legends like that of Sleeping Beauty and famously given new life by Washington Irving (1783-1859) in "Rip Van Winkle" (in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent [in parts 1819-20]), whose lazy protagonist falls asleep in the Catskills for 20 years. Modern tales of this sort rarely focus on the awakened sleeper, but on the impact that an intruder from beyond, whose responses to us may well be inappropriate or alien, might have upon our own world. [JC] SLEEPING DOGS NEW ZEALAND. SLESAR, HENRY (1927- ) US writer who began his career in advertising. He started to publish sf with "The Brat" for Imaginative Tales in 1955. Of his several hundred stories, about a third have been sf or fantasy, most of them appearing in his first decade as a writer; many are as by O.H. Leslie. He is best known for his work in the mystery field, with a number of thrillers from The Gray Flannel Shroud (1958), which won an Edgar, onwards. Among them was a borderline-sf tale, The Bridge of Lions (1963); closely connected to this kind of work was his stint as headwriter for the US daytime suspense serial, The Edge of Night, in the late 1950s and 1960s. Other tv work included 24 episodes for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-61), The Virtue Affair for The MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. in 1965, and at least 100 additional scripts, many of them fantasy or sf. His one sf book has been the novelization of TWENTY MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957; 1957), published as #1 in the abortive AMAZING STORIES SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS series. [JC/PN]See also: PSI POWERS. SLICKS BEDSHEET; DIGEST; PULP MAGAZINES. SLIPSTREAM Film (1989). Entertainment Film Productions. Prod Gary Kurtz. Dir Steven M. Lisberger, starring Bill Paxton, Bob Peck, Mark Hamill, Kitty Aldridge, Eleanor David, Ben Kingsley. Screenplay Tony Kayden, based on a story by Bill Bauer. 102 mins. Colour.Unspecified ecological rape has led to great earthquakes and geological changes all over the world. A strong, constant "river" of wind, the Slipstream, blows always in one direction across a scarred landscape which confusingly alternates between scenes shot in Yorkshire and in Turkey. Eccentric remnants of civilization persist in isolated pockets; transport is, inexplicably, by microlight aircraft. A supposedly criminal ANDROID (Peck) is hunted by a psychotic cop (Hamill) and protected by a young bounty hunter (Paxton). The post- HOLOCAUST scenario is intriguing, the execution is dreadful. Kurtz, who produced STAR WARS (1977), was attempting a come-back here, along with Star Wars star Hamill; both failed. A few powerful moments focus on Peck's intelligent performance as the Christlike healer-android. Lisberger's previous sf film, TRON (1982), was not bad, and one can only wonder why this apparently promising project suffered from murky photography, confused editing and an incoherent and pretentious script. [PN] SLIPSTREAM SF A term devised, apparently by Bruce STERLING - in part as a pun on, or echo of, MAINSTREAM - to designate stories which make use of sf devices but which are not GENRE SF. The image is either nautical or aeronautical: a ship or an airplane (either of which stands for genre sf) can create a slipstream which may be strong enough to give non-paying passengers (Paul THEROUX, say) a ride. As a description of commercial piggybacking, the term seems apt; however, when used to designate the whole range of non-genre sf here called FABULATION (which see for discussion), the term - which implies a relationship of dependency - can seem derogatory. [JC] SLOANE, T(HOMAS) O'CONOR (1851-1940) US editor and author of popular scientific works. He was associate editor (designated managing editor for #1) of AMAZING STORIES and of AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY from the beginning, and carried much responsibility for the actual running of the magazines, although they were in the overall charge of, successively, Hugo GERNSBACK and Arthur Lynch. He succeeded to the editorship of both journals in 1929. Amazing Stories Quarterly ceased publication in 1934, but he retained the editorship of AMZ until June 1938, when the ailing magazine was sold to the Chicago-based ZIFF-DAVIS. Nearing his 80th year when he finally succeeded to the editorship, TOS had a long white beard and an appropriately Rip Van Winkle-like approach to the job; though he worked for 12 years on SF MAGAZINES, he stated publicly (in a 1929 AMZ editorial) his belief that Man would never achieve space travel. AMZ nevertheless bought the first stories of such writers as E.E. SMITH, John W. CAMPBELL Jr and Jack WILLIAMSON; but the combination of poor payment and slack management made it inevitable that writers of any calibre would soon move to more attractive markets. TOS actually lost the manuscript of Campbell's first story, and returned Clifford D. SIMAK's first submission after 4 years' silence, remarking that it was "a bit dated". He was more than once fooled into publishing plagiarisms. On one occasion (Feb 1933) he printed a story ("The Ho-Ming Gland" by Malcolm R. Afford) which had already appeared in WONDER STORIES (Jan 1931): the author had submitted the story to TOS 4 years earlier but, having heard nothing after a year, had sold it to the rival magazine.TOS, a PhD, had been an inventor, and his son married a daughter of a more celebrated inventor, Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). [MJE] SLOANE, WILLIAM M(ILLIGAN) (1906-1974) US playwright, novelist and publisher whose interest in the occult was reflected in his sf novels, To Walk the Night (1937; rev 1954) and The Edge of Running Water (1939; vt The Unquiet Corpse 1946), both later assembled as The Rim of Morning (omni 1964); along with 1 story, "Let Nothing You Dismay" (1954), they are all the sf he wrote. The first complexly combines horror and sf in the story of an ALIEN entrapped in a human life as the widow of a famous physicist, in whose death she seems implicated; the story is absorbing and polished. The second, rather similarly, features a scientist's attempts to communicate with his dead wife and to revive her; horrors ensue, and local prejudice exacts its toll. WMS also ed 2 sf anthologies, Space, Space, Space (anth 1953) and Stories for Tomorrow (anth 1954); the latter was one of the finest collections of its period. [JC] SLOCOMBE, GEORGE (EDWARD) (1894-1963) UK writer whose Dictator (1932), set in an imaginary European country, describes the rise of a tyranny there. Escape into the Past (1943) features an artist's wife who escapes irrevocably into the 17th century. [JC] SLONCZEWSKI, JOAN (LYN) (1956- ) US writer and professor of biology, specializing in genetics, who began publishing sf with her first novel, Still Forms on Foxfield (1980), a tale in which most of her subsequent concerns take initial shape. A human community of Quakers, having fled an apparently doomed Earth and establishing on the planet Foxfield a sane and ECOLOGY-obedient relationship with the native species, is contacted centuries later by a technologically resurgent humanity and must now deal with the challenge to its ways. Significantly, the book deals not with rediscovery - an old and typically triumphalist sf theme - but with being discovered, a point of view reiterated in her second and best known novel, A Door into Ocean (1986), which won the JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD. The planet (in fact a moon) is in this case water-covered and inhabited by WOMEN, who thwart a military invasion; the book teaches some sharp FEMINIST lessons en passant. The sequel, Daughter of Elysium (1993), broadens the terms of discourse - several contrasting societies are portrayed - at some cost to narrative vigour, though sharp subtle observations constantly, as before, prickle and amuse.The Wall around Eden (1989), set on a devastated post- HOLOCAUST Earth, provides its female protagonist with numbing challenges of comprehension (the supervising ALIENS are invisible and their insect-like culture may in fact have been decorticated - i.e., its central control systems may have been destroyed) and response, with no clear answers available in the waste. From the slightly sentimentalized burden of her first book, JS has moved rapidly into supple command of her ample concerns. [JC]See also: PASTORAL; UNDER THE SEA. SLOVAK SF CZECH AND SLOVAK SF. SLUSSER, GEORGE EDGAR (1939- ) US academic and critic with a PhD in literature from Harvard. He is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Riverside, and Curator of the J. LLOYD EATON COLLECTION there; he is also Director of the Eaton Program for Science Fiction and Fantasy Studies, which is devoted to research. GES has written and edited a number of critical books on sf, and has also translated sf-related works by Honore de BALZAC and J.H. ROSNY aine.His critical books, all from BORGO PRESS, are Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in His Own Land (chap 1976; rev 1977), The Farthest Shores of Ursula K. Le Guin (chap 1976), The Bradbury Chronicles (chap 1977), Harlan Ellison: Unrepentant Harlequin (chap 1977), The Delany Intersection (chap 1977), The Classic Years of Robert A. Heinlein (chap 1977) and The Space Odysseys of Arthur C. Clarke (chap 1978).Anthologies of critical essays ed GES, most collecting papers delivered at the annual Eaton Conference on fantasy and sf, and generally edited collaboratively with other academics involved in the Conference, are Bridges to Science Fiction (anth 1980) ed with George R. Guffey and Mark ROSE, Bridges to Fantasy (anth 1982) ed with Eric RABKIN and Robert SCHOLES, Co-Ordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy (anth 1983) ed with Rabkin and Scholes, Shadows of the Magic Lamp: Fantasy and Science Fiction in Film (anth 1985) ed with Rabkin, Hard Science Fiction (anth 1986) ed with Rabkin, Storm Warnings: Science Fiction Confronts the Future (anth 1987) ed with Rabkin and Colin GREENLAND, Intersections: Fantasy and Science Fiction (anth 1987) ed with Rabkin, Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction (anth 1987) ed with Rabkin,Mindscapes: The Geographies of Imagined Worlds (anth 1989) ed with Rabkin, Styles of Creation: Aesthetic Technique and the Creation of Fictional Worlds (anth 1992) with Rabkin, Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative (anth 1992) with Tom SHIPPEY, Fights of Fancy: Armed Conflict in Science Fiction and Fantasy (anth 1993) with Rabkin and Styles of Creation: Aesthetic Technique and the Creation of Fictional Worlds (anth 1993) with Rabkin. By academic standards, at least, GES is a controversialist. On receiving the PILGRIM AWARD for services to sf criticism and scholarship in 1986, he argued that "we need to get sf out of the English department" into comparative literature, interdisciplinary studies or even as "a discipline in itself". [PN]See also: ANTHROPOLOGY; CINEMA; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF. SMALL, AUSTIN J(AMES) (1894-1929) UK adventure and thriller writer, born Austin Small Major, though his death certificate gives AJS. He wrote 3 books of sf interest. In Master Vorst (1926; vt The Death Maker 1926 US) an insane plan to kill off the human race by germ warfare is thwarted in the nick of time. The Man They Couldn't Arrest (1927) is a mystery novel incorporating unusual devices and inventions into the plot. The Avenging Ray (1930), as Seamark, again features a mad scientist intent upon destroying the world, his WEAPON in this case being a "Degravitisor" DEATH-RAY. The title story of Out of the Dark (coll 1931, assembled after the author's suicide) as by Seamark features a were-leopard. [JC/JE] SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS 1. The USA Any firm founded to release work of personal interest to the publisher, and which distributes that work to readers whose interest can also be assumed, may be called a small press. Four years before Hugo GERNSBACK began AMAZING STORIES in 1926, The Lunar Publishing Company of Providence, Kentucky, was founded by friends of the author of the book it had been created in order to publish - and then folded. To the Moon and Back in Ninety Days: A Thrilling Narrative of Blended Science and Adventure (1922) by John Young Brown (1858-1921) was a genuine exercise in Gernsbackian sf, featuring a ship driven by ANTIGRAVITY plus lessons in ASTRONOMY and other sciences. It may have been the first GENRE-SF novel to reach book form in the USA; it was certainly the first such novel to be published for an affinity readership.Several years passed, however, before the Lunar example was followed for sf publications; for more than a decade, the only small-press activity of genre interest took place in the fields of FANTASY and HORROR. The writers who formed a circle around H.P. LOVECRAFT - they included Robert E. HOWARD, Frank Belknap LONG, Edgar Hoffman PRICE, Clark Ashton SMITH and Donald WANDREI - all found it difficult to publish with conventional houses, and when W. Paul Cook (1881-1948), a friend of Lovecraft's and editor of some influential early APAS, decided in 1925 to move into PUBLISHING they were happy to contemplate having material released by his Recluse Press. In the event, its sole publications of interest were Long's first book, A Man from Genoa (coll 1926 chap), Wandrei's first book, Ecstasy (coll 1928 chap), and Lovecraft's The Shunned House (1928 chap), only a very few copies of which were bound. Another start-and-stop small press, The ARRA Printers run by Conrad H. Ruppert, released 4 pamphlets in the early 1930s as a sidebar to FANTASY MAGAZINE, including Allen GLASSER's The Cavemen of Venus (1932 chap), which seems to have been the first independent work of fiction produced from within fandom.The most important figure in this first flowering of the small press - although the quality of his work aroused controversy in the field - may have been William L. CRAWFORD (whom see for details of his long career), who began in imitation of Ruppert as a magazine producer, and who similarly moved into books; operating as Fantasy Pubs., his first release was Men of Avalon/The White Sybil (anth 1935 chap), which featured a story each by David H. KELLER and Clark Ashton Smith, and he continued with Mars Mountain (1935) by Eugene George KEY. More importantly, operating as Visionary Publishing Company, he then released The Shadow over Innsmouth (1937) by Lovecraft. It is worth noting that Crawford, like his predecessors, clearly found it easier to publish fantasy than sf; it was not until after WWII that any significant sf, with one exception, reached book form via the small presses; that exception was Dawn of Flame and Other Stories (coll 1936) by Stanley G. WEINBAUM, a memorial volume put together by The Milwaukee Fictioneers, a fan group whose members included, among others, Robert BLOCH, Ralph Milne FARLEY and Raymond A. PALMER, and which would soon be seen as of great importance. But when in 1939 August DERLETH and Wandrei founded ARKHAM HOUSE: PUBLISHERS - which soon became and which remains the most famous of all small presses - they were inspired by Crawford's publication of the Lovecraft title. The reasons for this dominance of fantasy are not entirely clear, but probably come down to accidents of personality and opportunity: the early small presses could be described as close-knit "family" endeavours, and their publications were released to an extremely narrow group of buyers; and the Lovecraft circle, active through the 1920s and 1930s, was exactly the sort of "family" required for primitive small-press activities. It was only after sf FANDOM became properly organized at the end of the 1930s that sf itself was able to give birth to the "family" firms that multiplied after WWII.It all changed after 1945. Crawford himself began to publish sf with real frequency in 1947, when he founded FANTASY PUBLISHING COMPANY INC. (better known as FPCI), but by then he found himself sharing the sf world with several other new houses, including FANTASY PRESS, founded by Lloyd Arthur ESHBACH in 1946, GNOME PRESS, founded by David A. KYLE and Martin GREENBERG in 1948, the HADLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY, founded by Donald M. Grant (1927- ) and Thomas G. Hadley in 1946, PRIME PRESS, founded by Oswald TRAIN and others in 1947, The Avalon Company, founded in 1947 by Will Sykora (1913-1994), which published only one title, Life Everlasting and Other Tales of Science, Fantasy and Horror (coll 1947) by David H. KELLER, and SHASTA PUBLISHERS, founded by T.E. DIKTY (whom see for details of his long career), Erle Melvin Korshak and Mark Reinsberg in 1947. For almost a decade from 1946 these small presses - along with a few even smaller enterprises - dominated sf publishing. Various factors came together to explain this dominance: general-list firms had not yet discovered the field, while at the same time an influx of young men, all potential readers and book-buyers, had been released from military service; a large backlog of GENRE SF had built up in the magazines, including work by several prominent authors who were eager to see their material in book form; the genre was now old enough to have a past worthy of celebration, and had gained through the workings of fandom a singularly loyal readership; and the men (no women were importantly involved) who wished to celebrate the genre by publishing its works were now, most of them, mature and experienced enough to operate small publishing firms with some chance of success. For almost a decade from 1946, the fans and writers of sf seemed to be in control of their own house. For many still alive, those years were the true GOLDEN AGE OF SF.By the middle of the 1950s, however, almost all the small presses were moribund or dead, crushed by the rise of the paperback ( ACE BOOKS; BALLANTINE BOOKS; BANTAM BOOKS) and the incursion of general publishers (like DOUBLEDAY and Scribners) into what had become a profitable market; in 1995, limited editions remain comparatively difficult to market. Arkham House survived, and some small presses devoted in the main to nonfiction - like ADVENT: PUBLISHERS from 1956, Jack L. CHALKER's MIRAGE PRESS from 1961, Lloyd C. CURREY's and David G. HARTWELL's Dragon Press from 1971, and Dikty's FAX COLLECTOR'S EDITIONS and STARMONT HOUSE from 1972 - continued to produce work. But genre sf, it seemed, had outgrown its familial dependence on fans; it had entered the commercial world, and what small presses remained could hope only to service the fringes of the genre, supplying readers with books of criticism (until the academic houses began to sense that sf might be a growth subject), fan BIBLIOGRAPHIES and indexes, and memoirs. Or so it seemed.There is no doubt that in the 1990s general publishers still dominate commercial sf; but from the early 1970s small presses began to reappear, for reasons which are not entirely understood. Owlswick Press was founded by George SCITHERS in 1973, Robert Weinberg Publications by Robert E. WEINBERG in 1974, the BORGO PRESS by Robert REGINALD in 1975, UNDERWOOD-MILLER INC. by Tim UNDERWOOD and Chuck MILLER in 1976, Phantasia Press by Sid Altus and Alex Berman in 1978, Locus Press by Charles N. BROWN in 1981 (with an emphasis on reference material), MARK V. ZIESING by Ziesing in 1982, and Dark Harvest by Paul Mikol and Mark Stadalsky in 1983 (with an emphasis on fantasy). Many more followed, including (most importantly) PULPHOUSE PUBLISHING, founded by Kristine Kathryn RUSCH, Dean Wesley SMITH and others in 1988. Two fine presses (see below) were also active: Roy A. Squires, founded by Squires (1920-1988) in 1960, and Cheap Street, founded by Jan and George O'Nale in 1980.Though nothing can be certain in a field which has expanded so very much, three broad sets of explanations for the small-press renaissance can be suggested: a desire on the part of new generations of sf aficionados to re-occupy the "family" territory, which had for so many years been spoken for by ever-huger publishing firms whose interest in sf was (understandably) merely commercial; a sense that the large general-list firms tended to ignore some writers whose sales potential was limited, and who might profitably be published by a press with an affinity for the author or the material; and a more general sense that small presses might profitably occupy niches left vacant by the commercial houses.There are several such niches. Because paperback houses became the dominant form of sf publishing after the early 1950s, the work of many significant post-WWII authors appeared only in the form of paperback originals, and by the 1970s a second pool of publishable work - larger in fact than the pool of material available just after WWII - had accumulated. Many of the small presses, therefore, concentrated on republishing, in hardback, novels from the previous two decades, thus putting some of the best sf into permanent form, generating library sales for their authors, and making their oeuvres available - a mixed blessing, perhaps - to academics. A second important niche was the collectors' market, which could itself be divided into three sectors: first editions, limited editions, and fine-press productions.For many sf collectors - whose rationality on the subject is a matter of dispute - the publication of a book as a paperback original does not constitute its first edition as a collectable item, which status is reserved for the first hardback publication. Small-press publishers were very quick to understand and to profit from this bias, and the entirely responsible republication in hardback form of fragile paperback originals soon became somewhat tainted by fetishism, especially when limited editions became popular.Limited editions are generally thought to be independently created books, identifiable by some statement of limitation, which usually gives the total number of copies produced along with a handwritten or hand-stamped number indicating which precise copy is in the collector's hands. They are often signed. Many collectors assume that limited editions by definition boast at least subtle differences in typesetting, binding or paper quality from the trade issue; unfortunately, this is not always the case, and many are distinguishable from the trade issue by no more than a tipped-in label designating them as special. This practice - added to the extraordinary proliferation of limited editions of unremarkable work, plus the quite astonishing ugliness of many small-press releases - has not unsurprisingly led to a 1990s glut in the limited-edition market; in 1995, limited editions remain comparatively difficult to market.In distinction to this crassness, publishers of fine-press books like Roy A. Squires and Cheap Street have concentrated on the individual crafting of extremely small editions of books produced on the premises by letterpress (a technique of printing directly from movable metal type, an expensive and slow typesetting process otherwise rarely encountered in book-production today). However, because such items are relatively expensive and are purchased by a very particular kind of book collector, it cannot be argued that fine presses represent a return to the roots of the fantasy and sf small press. Those roots continue to be watered, though intermittently, by the small presses cited above, and by dozens of other similar houses. Refreshingly opinionated, though occasionally inaccurate, The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Critical and Bibliographic History (3rd, hugely expanded edn 1991; various revs whose presence must be discovered, as copyright data do not reflect them) by Jack L. CHALKER and Mark OWINGS provides a comprehensive analysis of about 150 firms.2. Other countries There is little to say about small-press activity in other English-speaking countries before the past couple of decades.The Australian Futurian Press, founded in Sydney in 1950 by Vol MOLESWORTH and others, operated for a few years; and Donald H. TUCK formed Donald H. Tuck in 1954 to publish the first versions of what became the essential Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy through 1968 (3 vols 1974, 1978 and 1982, all US, from Advent). Two decades later, however, with the founding of two houses - Norstrilia Press in 1975 by Bruce GILLESPIE and Void Publications ( VOID) by Paul COLLINS in 1978 - small presses finally became a visible component of AUSTRALIA's sf scene. Later imprints include Graham Stone from 1989, Aphelion Publications from 1990 and Dreamstone from 1991. However, Norstrilia and Void stopped publishing in 1984 and the other firms are frail. CANADA saw even less activity than Australia, perhaps because Canadian sf fans had readily available to them the formidable output of US small presses. Occasional imprints appeared - like the Kakabeka Publishing Company, which published Judith MERRIL's Survival Ship (coll 1973) and some non-sf books. More recently, the Press Porcepic issued an anthology of Canadian sf, Tesseracts (anth 1985) ed Merril, the first in a series, and subsequently calved a second small press, Tesseract Books, in 1988. And United Mythologies Press was founded in 1990 essentially to print unpublished works by R.A. LAFFERTY, though it soon began to look further afield.In the UK, small-press publishing did not awake sustained interest among the sf community until the 1980s, the only example of an interest from earlier being Ferret Fantasy, founded by George LOCKE in 1972 mainly to publish bibliographical work plus occasional reprints. However, with the founding of Kerosina Publications in 1986 by James Goddard and several colleagues, a small flowering occurred. Morrigan Publications was founded in 1987 by Jim and Les Escott, Kinnell Publications in 1987 by A.E. Cunningham and Richard G. Lewis, and Drunken Dragon Press in 1988 by Rod Milner and Rog Peyton; by 1995, however, all these firms had either formally given up the ghost, or were inactive. Slightly earlier, Titan Books, an arm of the Forbidden Planet/Titan bookselling and distribution complex, was brought into existence as a small press, but by 1990 (after 3 books) it had moved into general publishing; in late 1992 it was in the throes of restructuring and takeover. However, none of these firms - with the exception of Kerosina for a year or so - has published original UK work with enough frequency to make a significant impact. [JC] SMITH, A(NTHONY) C(HARLES) [r] ROBERT HALE LIMITED. SMITH, ARTEGALL Philip NORTON. SMITH, CLARK ASHTON (1893-1961) US writer and sculptor, of most interest to the sf reader as a fantasist whose rich style (sometimes idiomatic, sometimes "jewelled" in the Lord DUNSANY manner) and baroque invention had a loosening effect on the sf field, doing much to transform the interplanetary romance of the early years of the century into the full-fledged PLANETARY ROMANCE, whose characteristic attitude towards the FAR FUTURE and the possibilities inherent therein was capitalized upon by Jack VANCE and others.By 1910 CAS had sold stories to The Black Cat and The OVERLAND MONTHLY , but he concentrated on poetry (see listing below). Although he published some desultory fantasy before 1930, almost all his work of note within the genre, commencing with "The Last Incantation" (1930), was written for PULP MAGAZINES - most frequently Weird Tales, occasionally Wonder Stories - from that date to about 1936, when he virtually stopped writing. Of most importance as an influence on sf was "City of the Singing Flame" (1931; 1940), notable for the power of the SENSE OF WONDER it evoked. These stories, over 100 of them, can be found in The Immortals of Mercury (1932 chap), The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies (coll 1933 chap), Out of Space and Time (coll 1942; in 2 vols 1974 UK), Lost Worlds (coll 1944; in 2 vols vt Lost Worlds: Zothique, Averoigne, and Others 1974 UK and Lost Worlds: Atlantis, Hyperborea, Xiccarph, and Others 1974 UK) - which includes Sadastor (1930 Weird Tales; 1972 chap) - Genius Loci and Other Tales (coll 1948), The Abominations of Yondo (coll 1960), Poems in Prose (coll 1964 chap), Tales of Science and Sorcery (coll 1964) and Other Dimensions (coll 1970; in 2 vols 1977 UK). The last 2 collections contain most of his sf, most of it interplanetary SPACE OPERA. Subsequently, Lin CARTER reassembled those of CAS's tales set in particular venues and republished them as Zothique (coll of linked stories 1970), Hyperborea (coll of linked stories 1971), Xiccarph (coll of stories, some linked, 1972) and Poseidonis (coll of linked stories 1973).CAS was not much interested in science, or in expressing the forward thrust of conventional sf, and it is perhaps inadvisable to think of him in sf terms. His work is better considered in conjunction with the weird fantasies written by his friend H.P. LOVECRAFT and by Robert E. HOWARD. His best work has not dated. [JC/PN]Other works: The Mortuary (1971 chap); Prince Alcouz and the Magician (1977 chap), previously unpublished early tale; The City of the Singing Flame (coll 1981), which assembles previously collected material; As it is Written (1982), written as CAS by De Lysle Ferree Cass; The Last Incantation (coll 1982); The Monster of the Prophecy (coll 1983); the Unexpurgated Clark Ashton Smith sequence, comprising The Dweller in the Gulf (cut 1933 as "Dweller in Martian Depths"; 1987 chap), Mother of Toads (cut 1938 Weird Tales; 1987 chap), The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis (cut 1932 Weird Tales; 1988 chap), The Monster of the Prophecy (cut 1932 Weird Tales; 1988 chap), The Witchcraft of Ulua (cut 1934 Weird Tales; 1988 chap) and Xeethra (cut 1934 Weird Tales; 1988 chap); Nostalgia of the Unknown: Complete Prose Poetry (coll 1988 chap); A Rendezvous in Averoigne (coll 1988); Strange Shadows: The Uncollected Fiction and Essays (coll 1989).Poetry: The Star-Treader (coll 1912); Odes and Sonnets (coll 1918 chap); Ebony and Crystal: Poems in Verse and Prose (coll 1923), which includes From the Crypts of Memory (1973 chap) and The Hashish-Eater, or The Apocalypse of Evil (1989 chap); Sandalwood (coll 1925 chap); Nero and Other Poems (coll 1937 chap); The Dark Chateau (coll 1951 chap); Selected Poems (coll 1971); Grotesques and Fantastiques (coll 1973 chap), which includes drawings; Klarkash-ton and Monstro Lieriv (coll 1974 chap) with Virgil FINLAY; many further vols, usually chapbooks, have been issued.Nonfiction: Planets and Dimensions: Collected Essays (coll 1973 chap) ed Charles K. Wolfe (brother of Gary K. WOLFE); The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith (coll 1979); The Devil's Notebook: Collected Epigrams and Pensees (coll 1990 chap).About the author: Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography (1978) by Donald Sydney-Fryer.See also: ARKHAM HOUSE; ASTEROIDS; ATLANTIS; HORROR IN SF; MARS; MERCURY; PARALLEL WORLDS; SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS; SUN; SWORD AND SORCERY; TRANSPORTATION; VENUS. SMITH, CORDWAINER Most famous pseudonym of Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (1913-1966), US writer, political scientist, military adviser in Korea and Malaya (though not Vietnam). A polyglot, he spent many of his early years in Europe, Japan and China, in the footsteps of his father, Paul M.W. Linebarger, a sinologist and propagandist for Sun Yat-sen. He was a devout High Anglican, deeply interested in psychoanalysis and expert in "brainwashing" techniques, on which he wrote an early text, Psychological Warfare (1948; rev 1954). Right-wing in politics, he played an active role in propping up the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China before the communist takeover.His interest in China was profound - he studied there, and there edited his father's The Gospel of Chuang Shan (1932 chap France), writing as well several texts of his own, beginning with Government in Republican China (1938); the style of some of his later stories reflects his attempts to translate a Chinese narrative and structural style into his sf writing, not perhaps with complete success, as the fabulist's voice he assumed ( FABULATION) verged towards the garrulous when opened out into English prose. He began to publish sf with "War No. 81-Q" as by Karloman Jungahr for The Adjutant - a high-school journal - in 1928; the tale bore some relationship to the Instrumentality of Mankind Universe into which almost all his mature work fitted. Before beginning to write that mature work, however, CS served with the US Army Intelligence Corps in China during WWII and published 3 non-sf novels: Ria (1947) and Carola (1948), both as by Felix C. Forrest, and Atomsk: A Novel of Suspense (1949) as by Carmichael Smith. After that date he published fiction only as CS.His first CS story, and one of the finest of his mature tales, "Scanners Live in Vain" (1950), appeared obscurely in FANTASY BOOK 5 years after it had been rejected by the more prestigious sf journals (although John W. CAMPBELL Jr had penned an encouraging rejection note from ASF), perhaps because its foreboding intensity made the editors of the time uneasy, perhaps because it plunges in medias res into the Instrumentality Universe, generating a sense that much remains untold beyond the dark edges of the tale. Scanners are space pilots; the rigours of their job entail the functional loss of the sensory region of their brains. The story deals with their contorted lives and with the end of the form of space travel necessitating the contortions: it is clear that much has happened in the Universe before the tale begins, and that much will ensue. The Instrumentality dominated the rest of CS's creative life, which lasted 1955-66, with individual stories making up the bulk of several collections - including You Will Never Be the Same (coll 1963), Space Lords (coll 1965), Under Old Earth and Other Explorations (coll 1970 UK) and Stardreamer (coll 1971) - before being re-sorted into 2 definitive vols, The Best of Cordwainer Smith (coll 1975; vt The Rediscovery of Man 1988 UK) ed John J. PIERCE and The Instrumentality of Mankind (coll 1979); and subsequently resorted again, this time definitively, as The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Fiction of Cordwainer Smith (coll 1993). A similar complexity obscured the publication of his only full-scale sf novel, Norstrilia (1975), which first appeared as 2 separate novels - each in fact an extract from the original single manuscript - as The Planet Buyer (1964 Gal as "The Boy who Bought Old Earth"; rev 1964) and The Underpeople (1964 Worlds of If as "The Store of Heart's Desire"; rev 1968). Along with Quest of the Three Worlds (coll of linked stories 1966), the 2 re-sorted collections and Norstrilia assemble all of CS's sf.The Instrumentality of Mankind covers several millennia of humanity's uncertain progress into a FAR-FUTURE plenitude. Before the period of "Scanners Live in Vain" a shattered Earth is dubiously revitalized by the family of a Nazi scientist who awake from SUSPENDED ANIMATION to found the Instrumentality, a hereditary caste of rulers, under whose hegemony space is explored by scanners, then by ships which sail by photonic winds, then via planoforming, which is more or less instantaneous. Genetically modified animals are bred as slaves ( GENETIC ENGINEERING). On the Australian colony planet of Norstrilia, an IMMORTALITY drug called stroon is discovered, making the planet very rich indeed and granting the oligarchy on Earth eternal dominance, with no one but Norstrilians and members of the Instrumentality being permitted to live beyond 400 years. (Norstrilia deals with a young heir to much of the planet's wealth who travels to Earth, which he has purchased, discovering en passant a great deal about the animal-descended Underpeople.) Human life becomes baroque, aesthetical, decadent. But a fruitful concourse of Underpeople and aristocrats generates the Rediscovery of Man - as witnessed in tales like "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" (1964), "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" (1961) and "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" (1962), which embodies a sympathetic response to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s - through which disease, ethnicity and strife are deliberately reintroduced into the painless world. Much later an adventurer makes a Quest through Three Worlds in a Universe seemingly benign.The Instrumentality of Mankind remains, all the same, a fragment - as, therefore, does CS's work as a whole - for the long conflict between Underpeople and Instrumentality, the details of which are recounted by CS with what might be called oceanic sentiment, is never resolved; and CS's habitual teasing of the reader with implications of a fuller yet never-told tale only strengthens the sense of an almost coy incompletion. This sense is also reinforced by the Chinese ancestry of some of CS's devices, which inspired in him a narrative voice that, in ruminating upon a tale of long ago, seemed to confer, both with the reader and with general tradition, about the tale's meaning. Alfred Doblin (1878-1957) ( GERMANY) has also been suggested as a significant influence, both for his early expressionist work set in China, like Die drei Sprunge des Wang-Lun ["The Three Leaps of Wang-Lun"] (1915), and for his surreal metamorphic sf novels - none translated - like Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfmaschine ["Wadzek's Struggle with the Steam-Machine"] (1918) and Berge, Meere und Giganten ["Mountains, Sea and Giants"] (1924; rev vt Giganten ["Giants"] 1931). CS's best later stories glow with an air of complexity and antiquity that, on analysis, their plots do not not always sustain. Much of the structuring of the series is lyrical and incantatory (down to the literal use of rather bad poetry, and much internal rhyming) but, beyond stroon, and Norstrilia, and Old Earth and the absorbingly described SPACESHIPS, much of the CS Universe remains only glimpsed. Whether such a Universe, recounted in such a voice, could ever be fully seen is a question which, of course, cannot be answered. [JC]About the author: Exploring Cordwainer Smith (anth 1975) ed John Bangsund, from ALGOL Press; almost the whole of SPECULATION #33, 1976, is an analysis of CS's work by John J. Pierce; "The Creation of Cordwainer Smith" by Alan C. Elms, Science Fiction Studies #34 (11,3) (1984); Concordance to Cordwainer Smith (1984 chap) by Anthony R. LEWIS; A Cordwainer Smith Checklist (1991 chap) by Mike Bennett.See also: ANDROIDS; COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; CYBORGS; FASTER THAN LIGHT; GALACTIC EMPIRES; GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION; MEDICINE; MESSIAHS; MUSIC; MYTHOLOGY; ROBOTS; SOLAR WIND. SMITH, CURTIS C(OOPER) (1939- ) US critic and bibliographer, most of whose work in the first category has focused upon Olaf STAPLEDON, beginning with essays like "William Olaf Stapledon: Saint and Revolutionary" for Extrapolation in 1971, and culminating in Olaf Stapledon: A Bibliography (1984) with Harvey J. Satty. He is best known, however, for editing the first 2 edns of Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers (1981; rev 1986), part of a series of genre BIBLIOGRAPHIES designed for library use; he did not participate in the 3rd edn of 1991. The work offers coverage of about 600 sf (and fantasy) writers, some names being dropped (and others added) with each successive edn. The brief biographical sections are generally accurate; the critical pieces vary in quality, with some excellent short essays being included; but the bibliographies are flawed by a murkily inconsistent methoddology (perhaps due to the series' house style), and are error-strewn. [JC]See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF. SMITH, D(AVID) ALEXANDER (1953- ) US investment banker and writer who served as Treasurer of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA 1987-90 and has written several articles on wargame strategy ( GAMES AND TOYS). He began publishing sf with Marathon (1982), #1 in the Marathon sequence, which continues with Rendezvous (1988) and Homecoming (1990). The sequence is a First-Contact tale which depicts, with very considerable cunning, the slow process of learning and ultimate CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH attendant upon any genuine confrontation of Homo sapiens with the Other. In this case, the Cygnan ALIENS, who are rendezvousing with humans in interstellar space, are intriguingly perceived through flawed human eyes. Although DAS succumbs to some cliched presentation of sf conventions - for instance, the neurotic AI aboard the human starship - this slow, densely realized SPACE-OPERA epic deserves considerable notice.For some time, in conjunction with the Cambridge Science Fiction Writers' Workshop, DAS had been building a SHARED-WORLD portrait of Boston, Massachusetts, focusing on a period about 100 years hence when the central city has accreted into a vast defensive cube and has seceded from the USA. His own novel, In the Cube: A Novel of Future Boston (1993), focuses on this historical moment; a shared-world anthology, Future Boston (anth 1994) ed DAS, ranges backwards and forwards around the locus of the Cube. The whole enterprise demonstrates the potency of the shared world in those cases where creators, owners and writers are the same persons. [JC] SMITH, DEAN WESLEY (1950- ) US editor and writer who remains best known for founding, in 1988, PULPHOUSE PUBLISHING, whose various enterprises he has since dominated, in partnership with Kristine Kathryn RUSCH. With her he also ed Science Fiction Writers of America Handbook: The Professional Writer's Guide to Writing Professionally (anth 1990), a vade mecum full of necessary data, though not supremely well organized. After a vignette in The Clarion Awards (anth 1984) ed Damon KNIGHT, his first sf story was "Adrift in the Erotic Zone" for Gem in 1985. He won an award from the WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST for "One Last Dance", which appeared in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future (anth 1985) ed Algis BUDRYS. His first novel, Laying the Music to Rest (1989), begins slowly, with an attempt to exorcise a ghost from a deep lake, but soon entangles itself in the routines of a TIME-TRAVEL conflict between warring factions; en passant the protagonist visits the Titanic, where it seems he may be stuck forever. There is energy and feeling in DWS's work, but also a sense of scurry. [JC]Other work: The Moscow Mafia Presents Rat Tales (anth 1987) with Jon Gustafson, both as Smith Gustafson.See also: SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA; SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS. SMITH, E(DWARD) E(LMER) (1890-1965) US writer and food chemist specializing in doughnut mixes, often called the "Father of SPACE OPERA". Because Hugo GERNSBACK appended "PhD" to EES's name for his contributions to AMZ from 1928, he became known as "Doc" Smith. Greatly influential in US PULP-MAGAZINE sf between 1928 and about 1945, he found his reputation fading somewhat just after the end of WWII, when it seemed the dream-like simplicities of his world-view could no longer attract the modern reader of GENRE SF; but the specialty houses that became active after 1945 ( SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS) soon put his vast space-opera sagas into book form, and his name was kept alive. Towards the end of his life, after his retirement around 1960, he began producing space operas again, and his earlier work started to appear in paperback editions; after his death, yet another new generation made him an sf bestseller, first in the USA and later in the UK.EES's work is strongly identified with the beginnings of US pulp sf as a separate marketing genre, and did much to define its essential territory, galactic space. When in 1915 he began to write the first novel of his Skylark series with Mrs Lee Hawkins Garby (1890-? ) - a neighbour seconded to help with feminine matters such as dialogue - no models existed (or, at least, none that were available to a monolingual US food chemist) that could explain the combined exuberance and scale that The Skylark of Space (written 1915-20; 1928 AMZ; 1946; rev with cuts 1958) demonstrated when it finally appeared in AMAZING STORIES, 2 years after the start of that magazine, in the same issue as Philip NOWLAN's "Armageddon - 2419 A.D.", the story which introduced BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY. (Mrs Garby retained co-author credit in the 1st book edn, but the 1958 rev was as by EES alone.) Elements of EES's prelapsarian exuberance may have been discernible in some of the EDISONADES which proliferated in the USA from about 1890; and a certain cosmogonic high-handedness is traceable to the works of H.G. WELLS and his UK contemporaries. But it was EES who combined the two. Along with its sequels - Skylark Three (1930 AMZ; 1948), Skylark of Valeron (1934-5 ASF; 1949) and Skylark DuQuesne (1966) - The Skylark of Space brought the edisonade to its first full maturity, creating a proper galactic forum for the exploits of the inventor/scientist/action-hero who keeps the world (or the Universe) safe for US values despite the efforts of a foreign-hued villain (Marc "Blackie" DuQuesne) to pollute those values. But the highly personalized conflict between HERO-inventor Richard Seaton and VILLAIN-inventor DuQuesne - who develops from the stage histrionics of the first novel to the dominating antiheroics of the last and is perhaps EES's most vivid creation - did not very satisfactorily motivate the vast intergalactic conflicts of the later volumes of the series, as the scale of everything - the potency of the WEAPONS, the power, size and speed of the SPACESHIPS, the number of planets overawed - increased by leaps and bounds. Nor was EES much concerned to sophisticate the chummy, clammy idiocy of his women ( SEX; WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION) or the hokum of the slang in which all emotions were conveyed.It was not until he began to unveil the architectural structure of his second and definitive SERIES that EES was able to demonstrate the thoroughness of his thinking about space opera. And it is with the Lensmen series - or The History of Civilization, the over-title for the 1953-5 limited-edn boxed reprint of the original books - that his name is most strongly and justly associated. In order of internal chronology, the sequence is Triplanetary (1934 AMZ; rev to fit the series 1948), First Lensman (1950), Galactic Patrol (1937-8 ASF; 1950), Gray Lensman (1939-40 ASF; 1951), Second-Stage Lensmen (1941-2 ASF; 1953) and Children of the Lens (1947-8 ASF; 1954). The Vortex Blaster (1941-2 var mags; fixup 1960; vt Masters of the Vortex 1968 US) is also set in the Lensman Universe, probably some time before Children of the Lens, but does not deal with the central progress of the main series, the working out of which was EES's most brilliant auctorial coup. As published in book form, the first 2 novels likewise stand outside the main action; it is the final 4 that lie at the heart of EES's accomplishment. Conceived as one 400,000-word novel, and divided into separate titles for publication 1937-48 in ASF - from before John W. CAMPBELL Jr began editing the journal, through the high pitch of the GOLDEN AGE OF SF (1939-42) he supervised, and into the post-WWII period - the central Lensmen tale is constructed around the gradual revelation of the hierarchical nature of the Universe.Two vastly advanced and radically opposed races, the good Arisians and the evil Eddorians, have been in essential opposition for billions of years. The Arisians understand that their only hope of defeating the absolute Evil represented by the Eddorians is to develop over eons a countervailing Civilization via special breeding lines on selected planets, of which Earth (Tellus) is one. These breeding lines will develop beings capable of enduring the enormous stress of inevitable conflict with the forces of Evil: the various planets and empires, known collectively as Boskone, inimical to Civilization and secretly commanded through a nest of hierarchies by the invisible Eddorians. We are introduced first to the broad picture and to the idea of the Lens, a bracelet which tenders to suitable members of the Arisian-influenced Galactic Patrol certain telepathic and other powers; then, as the central sequence progresses, we climb, link by link, the vast chain of command, as seen through the eyes of the series' main protagonist, Kim Kinnison - who with his wife represents the penultimate stage in the Arisian breeding programme, and whose children will finally defeat the Eddorians. Kinnison never knows that the layer just penetrated has layers behind it, and has never so much as heard of the Eddorians; each new volume of the sequence, therefore, begins with the revelation that the Universe is greater, and requires greater powers to confront, than Kinnison had hitherto imagined. In the Skylark books, Seaton's acquisition of similar powers was distressingly unbridled; but Kinnison, as a commanding member of the organization of Lensmen (itself hierarchical), is by contrast licensed, and his institutionalized gaining of superpowers and special knowledge is measured, inevitable, and kinetically enthralling. It was almost certainly these controlled jumps in scale that fascinated most early readers of the series and which, for many of them, represented the essence of the SENSE OF WONDER. The Lensmen books had the shape of dreams.EES wrote some rather less popular out-of-series books, none having anything like the force of his major effort. A decade after his death, books he had begun or completed in manuscript, or had merely inspired or authorized, began to appear in response to his great posthumous popularity. Lensmen ties included New Lensman * (1976) by William B. Ellern (1933- ) and The Dragon Lensman * (1980), Lensman from Rigel * (1982) and Z-Lensman * (1983), all by David A. KYLE. The Family d'Alembert series, published as by EES "with Stephen GOLDIN", derived some material from posthumous manuscripts; the 1st vol, The Imperial Stars * (1964 If; exp 1976), was based on published material, but subsequent volumes were essentially the work of Goldin (whom see for details). Lloyd Arthur ESHBACH constructed in Subspace Encounter * (1983) a sequel to the inferior Subspace Explorers (1960 ASF as "Subspace Survivors"; exp 1965). None of these adjuncts did anything to help EES's reputation. Today, while he must be read, it has to be in the loving awareness that he is a creature of the dawn. [JC]Other works: What Does this Convention Mean?: A Speech Delivered at the Chicago 1940 World's Science Fiction Convention (1941 chap); Spacehounds of IPC (1931 AMZ; 1947); The Galaxy Primes (1959 AMZ; 1965); The Best of E.E. "Doc" Smith (coll 1975); Masters of Space (1961-2 If; 1976) with E. Everett EVANS.About the author: The Universes of E.E. Smith (1966) by Ron ELLIK and Bill EVANS; "E.E. Smith" in Seekers of Tomorrow (coll 1966) by Sam MOSKOWITZ.See also: ALIENS; BIG DUMB OBJECTS; CHILDREN'S SF; COSMOLOGY; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; DEFINITIONS OF SF; DIMENSIONS; EVOLUTION; FABULATION; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; FORCE FIELD; GAMES AND TOYS; HISTORY OF SF; JUPITER; LONGEVITY (IN WRITERS AND PUBLICATIONS); POWER SOURCES; SCIENTIFIC ERRORS; SCIENTISTS; SPACE FLIGHT; STARS. SMITH, E.E. The real name of the US author who for obvious reasons writes under a pseudonym, Gordon EKLUND. [JC] SMITH, EVELYN E. (1927- ) US writer and crossword-puzzle compiler who began publishing sf with "Tea Tray in the Sky" for Gal in 1952, and for about a decade published actively in the magazines; after about 1960 she appeared there only infrequently. She has also written as Delphine C. Lyons. Her first novel, The Perfect Planet (1962), is set on a planet which was once a health farm. Valley of Shadows (1968) as Delphine C. Lyons is a fantasy. Unpopular Planet (1975) - no connection to the first book - is a comparatively ambitious work, written in a sometimes passable imitation of 18th-century typographical (if not stylistic) practices and presenting the memoirs, set down long after most of the events recounted, of a human from an overpopulated future Earth whose contacts with ALIENS trying to maintain the planet as a breeding-ground for humans and other species have led to picaresque adventures, some of them sexual. The Copy Shop (1985) - again an element of SATIRE is mildly evident - places aliens in New York City; they are not noticed. [JC]See also: COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; WOMEN SF WRITERS. SMITH, GARRET (?1876-1954) US journalist and newspaper editor who was active with sf stories in magazines like The Argosy, where several novels appeared. Only Between Worlds (1919 Argosy; 1929), one of his weakest, reached book form; it is a semi-juvenile tale that begins on a DYSTOPIAN Venus and concludes on Earth, with female protagonists plotting to conquer the world. Of more interest are "On the Brink of 2000" (1910 Argosy) and "The Treasures of Tantalus" (1920-21 Argosy All-Story), which feature devices to see anything happening anywhere in the world; the morality of these is discussed, though at no great length. The FLAMMARION-inspired "After a Million Years" (1919 Argosy) comprehends a dystopian Earth, an Edenic Jupiter, mad scientists, telepathic powers, aliens and the virtual extinction of humanity. Other magazine novels include "Thirty Years Late" (1928 Argosy All-Story) and "The Girl in the Moon" (1928 Argosy All-Story). GS was a sometimes capable writer whose ideas tended to outclass his fiction. [RB]See also: FANTASTIC VOYAGES. SMITH, GEORGE H(ENRY) (1922- ) US writer of much popular fiction and considerable sf, under his own name and several pseudonyms including books as Jan Hudson, Jerry Jason, Jan Smith, George Hudson Smith, Diana Summers (not sf), Hal Stryker and - mostly with his wife M. Jane Deer - M.J. Deer. He began publishing sf with "The Last Spring" for Startling Stories in 1953, and became very active after about 1960, releasing his first sf novels - Satan's Daughter (1961), 1976 - Year of Terror (1961; vt The Year for Love c1965), Scourge of the Blood Cult (1961), The Coming of the Rats (1961) and Love Cult (1961 as by Jan Hudson) - in a rush. These early novels are, however, rather negligible, and the collaborative Flames of Desire (1963) as by M.J. Deer is post- HOLOCAUST soft pornography. But with The Four-Day Weekend (1966) he began to strike a more sustained note, and in the following year started a series set in the ALTERNATE WORLD of Annwn: Druids' World (1967), Witch Queen of Lochlann (1969), Kar Kaballa (1969 dos), Second War of the Worlds (1976) and The Island Snatchers (1978). The last 3 vols of this sequence share the same main characters and present a complex interplay between this world and the alternative Welsh domain; they are GHS's most telling example of the kind of fantasy-textured sf at which he was best. Short stories of interest include "The Last Days of L.A." (1959) and "In the Imagicon" (1966). [JC]Other works: Doomsday Wing (1963); The Unending Night (1964); The Forgotten Planet (1965).As M.J.Deer: A Place Named Hell (1963).As Jan Hudson: Loveswept #293: Water Witch * (1988).As Jerry Jason: Sexodus (1963); The Psycho Makers (1965).As Hal Stryker: NYPD 2025 (1985), the first of an apparently abortive series; Hawkeye (1991), a TECHNOTHRILLER. SMITH, GEORGE HUDSON George H. SMITH. SMITH, GEORGE O(LIVER) (1911-1981) US writer and electronics engineer, most active and prominent in the 1940s in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION, for which he wrote his first story in 1942; "QRM - Interplanetary" began both his sf career and his most famous endeavour, the Venus Equilateral SERIES of stories (all in ASF) about a COMMUNICATIONS space station in the Trojan position (60deg ahead of the planet) of the orbit of VENUS, and the various crises that must be solved. These stories were assembled as Venus Equilateral (coll of linked stories 1947; with 3 stories added, exp in 2 vols 1975 UK; the UK version in 1 vol vt The Complete Venus Equilateral 1976 US). They exhibit GOS's main strength, a fascination with technical problems and their didactic explanation, after the fashion of Hugo GERNSBACK and the early AMZ, as well as his main weakness, an almost complete lack of interest in character or plot plausibility. However, though the technical presuppositions on which he based his communications station dated very swiftly, the sequence - featuring as it does a passel of cheerful wisecracking engineer/troubleshooters - vividly evokes a characteristic 1940s sf point of view about the future and the kinds of problems we might have to handle in space.GOS also wrote several SPACE OPERAS whose technical assumptions have likewise dated - perhaps because he was sufficiently numerate to make use of falsifiable speculations. The rocket gimmickry, the sense of space, and the kind of protagonists featured in his stories were - for instance - strongly reminiscent of but markedly less entrancing than the more expansive galactic venues of E.E. "Doc" SMITH's Lensmen series, the later vols of which were being serialized in ASF at about the same time. The best of GOS's space operas, originally published under his occasional pseudonym Wesley Long, is Nomad (1944 ASF; 1950 as GOS). Like most of his space epics, the story concerns an alien INVASION of the Solar System, in this case by means of a wandering planet. Other similar novels are Pattern for Conquest (1946 ASF; 1949) and the inferior Hellflower (1953).Though GOS wrote several further novels before becoming relatively inactive in 1959, he published only one other memorable book, the vivid SUPERMAN story The Fourth "R" (1959; vt The Brain Machine 1968). Although the story - about an artificially created Homo superior child who must fight to remain independent until adulthood - reflects earlier novels, such as Theodore STURGEON's The Dreaming Jewels (1950; vt The Synthetic Man 1957), The Fourth "R" so vividly enters into its protagonist's young mind, and so intriguingly details his strategy for survival against a particularly unpleasant villain, that it has become a model for tales of this kind (see also INTELLIGENCE). Another novel that combines both invasion and superman themes is Highways in Hiding (1956; cut vt The Space Plague 1957).Never strongly original, GOS was nonetheless an effective expounder of ideas and an enjoyable sf novelist of the second rank. The autobiographical notes in The Worlds of George O. (coll 1982) warmly and modestly evoke his life in the 1940s as a colleague and friend of John W. CAMPBELL Jr, Robert A. HEINLEIN and others; the collection assembles the best of his short work. [JC]Other works: Operation Interstellar (1950); Troubled Star (1953 Startling Stories; 1957); Fire in the Heavens (1949 Startling Stories; 1958); Lost in Space (1954 Startling Stories as "Spacemen Lost"; 1959); The Path of Unreason (1947 Startling Stories as "Kingdom of the Blind"; rev 1958).See also: DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; ECONOMICS; ESP; HEROES; ILLUSTRATION; MATTER TRANSMISSION; MONEY; SCIENTISTS; SEX; SPACE HABITATS; SUN. SMITH, H(ARRY) ALLEN (1907-1976) US newspaperman and author, mostly of humorous sketches and books, often for Saturday Evening Post. In his first sf novel, Mr Klein's Kampf, or His Life as Hitler's Double (1939), a Jew takes over from Hitler and declares Germany to be the new Zion. The Age of the Tail (1955), also a comic SATIRE, depicts the effect on a NEAR-FUTURE world of all children being born with tails. [JC] SMITH, JAN George H. SMITH. SMITH, JUNIUS [r] J.U. GIESY. SMITH, KENT (? - ) US writer in whose sf novel, Future X (1990), a Black man from a racist 21st century discovers a TIME-TRAVEL device, returns to the time of Malcolm X (1925-1965) with the intention of saving him from assassination, causes his death months too early, and finds himself bound into taking his place. But history continues as before, for there is no way, the book seems to argue, of curing the system that killed Malcolm X in the first place. [JC] SMITH, LAURE [r] Seth MCEVOY. SMITH, L. NEIL (1946- ) US writer, ex-police reserve officer, gunsmith and former state candidate for the US LIBERTARIAN Party who began publishing sf with "Grimm's Law" for Stellar 5 (anth 1980) ed Judy-Lynn DEL REY. The Win Bear sequence, set in a parallel universe ( ALTERNATE WORLDS) in which a libertarian version of the USA has become progressively decentralized ever since its foundation, includes The Probability Broach (1980), The Venus Belt (1981) and The Nagasaki Vector (1983), with Their Majesties' Bucketeers (1981) set in the same universe. A second series, the North American Confederacy sequence - Tom Paine Maru (1984), The Gallatin Divergence (1985) and Brightsuit MacBear (1988)-shows the descendants of the original protagonists expanding out into the Galaxy, spreading the libertarian gospel to ALIENS and abandoned human colonies in both the parallel universe and our own. Taflak Lysandra (1988), although set in the same universe, is unconnected to the main series.The Crystal Empire (1986), a somewhat confused tale of libertarian technological inventiveness, is set in another alternate world, a Europe destroyed by a far more devastating Black Death. The Wardove (1986), set on a terraformed Moon long after a nuclear HOLOCAUST has made Earth uninhabitable, depicts a state of war between anarcho-capitalists of several different species (including humans) and a repressive government, and is unusual among LNS's work for its general darkness of tone and comparative lack of humour. Contrastingly, Henry Martyn (1989) is a light-hearted SPACE OPERA written in a style strongly reminiscent of Raphael Sabatini's Captain Blood. A further sequence - Contact and Commune (1990),Converse and Conflict (1990) and Pallas (1993) - is set in yet another alternate world; in this instance Mikhail Gorbachev (1931- ) has been deposed (as was soon, indeed, to happen in the real world), Soviet hardliners have (perhaps rather mysteriously) taken over the USA, and disturbingly alert anarcho-capitalists (once again) begin to upset the apple cart. One of the protagonists is (also mysteriously) descended from the inhabitants of ATLANTIS.LNS is a writer of generally competent, fast-moving and often amusing adventures which can be marred by preachiness and intolerance where matters of POLITICS and morality are concerned. Almost all are distinguished by their relentlessly upbeat mood; the more recent are often rather poorly constructed. [NT]Other works: 3 STAR WARS ties, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu * (1983), Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon * (1983) and Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka * (1983).See also: ECONOMICS; SHARED WORLDS. SMITH, MARTIN Martin Cruz SMITH. SMITH, MARTIN (WILLIAM) CRUZ (1942- ) US writer who became famous with the political thriller/detective novel Gorky Park (1981), but whose first book, The Indians Won (1970), originally published as by Martin Smith, is genuine sf, positing an ALTERNATE WORLD in which the Native Americans - after Sitting Bull (c1834-1893) defeated General Custer (1839-1876) - have managed to consolidate themselves into an independent state, and in the 20th century hold the balance of power. Gypsy in Amber (1971) and its sequel, Canto for a Gypsy (1972), both originally published as by Martin Smith, feature a detective with ESP. The Analog Bullet (1972) utilizes the paranormal in similar circumstances. Under the house name Nick CARTER MCS wrote 3 borderline-sf thrillers, The Inca Death Squad * (1972), Code Name: Werewolf * (1973) and The Devil's Dozen * (1973). As Simon Quinn he published the non-sf Inquisitor series of novels about a Catholic organization opposed to Satanists. In Nightwing (1977), as MCS, it is discovered that a swarm of vampire bats is burdened with fleas which serve as vectors for a deadly plague; it was filmed as Nightwing (1979). [JC] SMITH, ROBERT CHARLES (1938- ) UK writer, prolific in various genres under several pseudonyms, including Roger C. Brandon, Robert Charles and Charles Leader. Flowers of Evil (1981) as by Robert Charles is horror, and Nightworld (1984; vt The Comet 1985 US), also as by Charles, is an expertly told but fairly unadventurous sf DISASTER tale. [JC] SMITH, SHERWOOD Pseudonym of US writer Christine I.S.Lowentrout (1951- ), much of whose work has been fantasy, and much of her production under other pseudonyms, usually for the production of TIES. As Robyn Tallis, she wrote 4 Planet Builders ties: Rebel from Alphorion * (1989), Visions from the Sea * (1989), Giants of Elenna * (1989) and Fire in the Sky * (1989); as Nicholas Adams, she wrote a Horror High tie, Final Curtain * (1991); she has written under yet other names as well. Her Wren series-Wren to the Rescue (1990) and Wren's Quest (1993)-is fantasy for children. With David Trowbridge (1950- ), who also edits a computer trade magazine, she has written the Exordium sequence, which is sf, and which comprises Phoenix in Flight (1993), Ruler of Naught (1993) and A Prison Unsought (1994). [JC] SMITH, WALTER J(AMES) [r] ROBERT HALE LIMITED. SMITH, WAYLAND Pseudonym for his sf novel of UK engineer Victor Bayley (1880-1972), whose career at a high level in the Indian railway system was reflected in much of his adventure fiction, some of which verged on fantasy, and which he signed with his real name. In his sf novel, The Machine Stops (1936), all metals disintegrate, casting humanity back into barbarism; one young man attempts to fabricate a new alloy to save the race. [JC] SMITH, WOODROW WILSON [s] Henry KUTTNER. SNAITH, J(OHN) C(OLLIS) (1876-1936) UK writer, mostly of historical novels, whose first sf novel, An Affair of State (1913), is set in a NEAR FUTURE England raddled by social strife, whose The Council of Seven (1921) describes a totalitarian DYSTOPIA, and whose Thus Far (1925) depicts the creation of an enormously powerful, telepathic SUPERMAN by the application of various rays, chemicals and, as E.F. BLEILER states, "glandular extracts from a missing link"; Bleiler further suggests that JCS may have published an earlier work describing the discovery of this link, but no such work has yet been unearthed. [JC] SNELL, EDMUND (1889-? ) UK writer, exceedingly prolific between the Wars, specializing in thrillers (often with Oriental villains) and mysteries. He wrote some sf books, including Kontrol (1928), in which a mad SCIENTIST switches a genius brain into an athlete's body and vice versa; he is in league with a Bolshevik agent who has built a fleet of futuristic vertical-take-off aerial juggernauts and a UTOPIAN supercity on a secret ISLAND with an active volcano. It is a well written sf thriller with an exuberance that lifts it above the ordinary.The Sound-Machine (1932) likewise features a crazed inventor; this one uses sound-waves to kill and disintegrate. [PN]Other works: The Yellow Seven (1923); The Yu-Chi Stone (1925); Blue Murder (1927); The White Owl (1930); The "Z" Ray (1932); The Sign of the Scorpion (1934).See also: ISLANDS; POLITICS; WEAPONS. SNODGRASS, MELINDA M(ARILYN) (1951- ) US lawyer and writer who has been associated with Star Trek since the publication of her first novel, Star Trek: The Tears of the Singers * (1984). She served as Executive Script Consultant for the first 2 seasons of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. Of ostensibly greater sf interest is her Circuit Trilogy - Circuit (1986), Circuit Breaker (1987) and Final Circuit (1988) - which takes a handsome lawyer and his extremely clever female sidekick into space, where they become involved in defending a batch of individualistic space stations and settlements against the hidebound bureaucracies of Earth. This point of view is not, of course, a fresh one, and a sense that MMS was not perhaps concentrating fully on the richer implications of her setting is strengthened by a plot structure which eventually relegates the tough female protagonist to the sidelines - in strict accordance with the Robert A. HEINLEIN guidelines on such matters-as soon as she becomes pregnant. Runespear (1987) with Victor MILAN is fantasy, as is Queen's Gambit Declined (1989).A Very Large Array: New Mexico Science Fiction and Fantasy (anth 1987) embodies MMS's theory that the urgent New Mexico landscape might serve to unify in some sense the work of writers there resident; in the event, though the theory still proves difficult to assess, the stories assembled are of admirable quality. [JC]Other works: MMS was assistant editor to George R.R. MARTIN, the editor, on 4 of the WILD CARDS series to date, these being #6: Ace in the Hole: A Wild Cards Mosaic Novel * (anth 1990), #7: Dead Man's Hand * (1990), written by Martin with John J. Miller, the 1st true novel in the series, #8: One-Eyed Jacks: A Wild Cards Mosaic Novel * (anth 1991) and #9: Jokertown Shuffle: A Wild Cards Mosaic Novel * (anth 1991); the next title, #10: Double Solitaire * (1992) is another true novel, written by MMS solo.As Melinda McKenzie: Magic to Do: Paul's Story (1985); Of Earth and High Heaven (1985)See also: LIBERTARIAN SF. SNOW, C(HARLES) P(ERCY) (1905-1980) UK writer, created Baron Snow of Leicester in 1964, best known for the long Strangers and Brothers sequence of novels, several of which deal intimately with science and the scientific establishment. In Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (1959), nonfiction, he famously suggested that science and the humanities had indeed become "two cultures", a phrase which has become part of the language. His sf novel, New Lives for Old (1933), published anon, depicts a search for IMMORTALITY and the negative consequences that attend its success. [JC] SNYDER, CECIL III (? - ) US author of The Hawks of Arcturus (1974), in which a lone Earthman defies the eponymous ALIENS in their attempt to find the secrets of an ancient Galaxy-ruling race. [JC] SNYDER, E.V. [r] Gene SNYDER. SNYDER, GENE (1943- ) Working name of US writer and academic Eugene Vincent Snyder. With William Jon WATKINS (whom see for details), he published 2 sf novels, Ecodeath (1972) as E.V. Snyder and The Litany of Sh'reev (1976). His solo works include Mind War (1980), The Ogden Enigma (1980) - in which the US military must deal with the fact that it has repressed all evidence that a UFO landed in 1950, a matter of urgency because the UFO now wants to go home - Dark Dreaming (1981), Tomb Seven (1985), a fantasy, and The Sigma Project (1988), a TECHNOTHRILLER. [JC]See also: ECOLOGY. SNYDER, GUY (1951- ) US author and journalist in whose Testament XXI (1973) a space explorer returns to Earth a century after a nuclear HOLOCAUST to find a balkanized land at war with itself. [JC] SOBCHACK, VIVIAN (CAROL) (1940- ) US author of academic film criticism, notably The Limits of Infinity: The American Science Fiction Film 1950-1975 (1980), expanded as Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film (1987), retaining the unaltered text of the earlier book but adding a long final chapter, "Postfuturism", which gives a reading of sf CINEMA developed from the critical theories of Fredric Jameson ( POSTMODERNISM AND SF). The original text is among the most sophisticated analyses of sf film yet published; the added chapter is clotted, but important in its placing of recent sf films in a Postmodernist context where, for example, computer imagery and outer space in film are registered as flat imitations of one another, or where we read schizophrenic narrative structures as zany comedies. VS's FEMINISM informs her work, particularly the essay "The Virginity of Astronauts: Sex and the Science Fiction Film" in Shadows of the Magic Lamp: Fantasy and Science Fiction in Film (anth 1985) ed George E. SLUSSER and Eric S. RABKIN. [PN] SOCIAL DARWINISM Social Darwinism is the thesis that social evolution and social history are governed by the same principles that govern the EVOLUTION of species in Nature, so that conflict between and within cultures constitutes a struggle for existence which is the motor of progress. Such ideas are inherent in the socio-economic theories of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who actually coined the phrase "the survival of the fittest", borrowed by Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Darwin himself was not a Social Darwinist, preferring to stress the survival value of cooperation in human societies. Social Darwinism was popularized in the USA by ardent political champions of laissez-faire capitalism, notably William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) - whose pessimistic anticipation of a coming war between the social classes echoed the Marxist theory of history, and presumably inspired Ignatius DONNELLY's apocalyptic Caesar's Column (1890; early edns as by Edmund Boisgilbert) - and the industrialist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). Social Darwinist rhetoric was co-opted to the justification of race hatred by the German writer Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896), a major source of inspiration for Hitler's Mein Kampf (2 vols 1925-6; trans 1939 UK) and the political ideology of Nazism. There is, however, no logically necessary connection between Social Darwinism and right-wing POLITICS; it is a versatile analogy which lends itself to many differing opinions as to which group ought to be designated "the fittest", and its arguments can be deployed both for and against calculated eugenic selection.The most important sf writer who might be termed a Social Darwinist was the socialist H.G. WELLS, who had no doubt that the "laws of evolution" discovered by Darwin applied to human society. His account of the future evolution of society in THE TIME MACHINE (1895) is based on a Social Darwinist logic, and in such UTOPIAS as A Modern Utopia (1905) a "struggle for existence" is artificially maintained - here in the ascetic training of the elite "samurai". Many of Wells's blueprints for the future assume that a better society can emerge only out of the destruction of the present one, by a process of rigorous winnowing; such future histories are sketched in The World Set Free (1914), Men Like Gods (1923) and The Shape of Things to Come (1933). When Wells finally despaired of his world-saving mission it was the logic of Darwinian law that he invoked to condemn society for its failure in Mind at the End of its Tether (1945). Louis TRACY's The Final War (1896) and M.P. SHIEL's The Yellow Danger (1898) are early future- WAR stories deploying a Social Darwinist species of racism, the latter suggesting that there must ultimately be a war between the different races of Homo sapiens for possession of the Earth; but Shiel later modified his Spencerian views and espoused a curiously Nietzschean kind of Social Darwinism most vividly displayed in The Young Men are Coming (1937). S. Fowler WRIGHT is the UK writer of SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE who most consistently glorified the struggle for existence and railed against the "utopia of comforts".Opposition to Darwinist analogies is evident in Claude FARRERE's Useless Hands (1926), a lurid warning of the ultimate effects of applying Darwinian logic to human society, and in Raymond Z. GALLUN's PULP-MAGAZINE story "Old Faithful" (1934), which argues that intellectual kinship is more important than biological difference. A fierce attack on Social Darwinism is mounted by C.S. LEWIS in his Ransom trilogy: OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET (1938), Perelandra (1943; vt Voyage to Venus) and That Hideous Strength (1945). The last volume - in which the organization N.I.C.E. begins to mould UK society along Social Darwinist lines - is the most direct.The logic of Social Darwinism has cropped up continually, but rather inconsistently, in GENRE SF. One writer particularly fond of invoking such ideas was Robert A. HEINLEIN. The assumptions of Social Darwinism seem to have shaped many of his perspectives - notably his attitude towards ALIENS, as displayed in The Puppet Masters (1951) and STARSHIP TROOPERS (1959), the "robust" LIBERTARIAN social theory of TANSTA AFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) propounded in THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS (1966), and the collection of aphorisms called "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" in Time Enough for Love (1973). Other libertarian sf writers make less use of this type of supportive logic. Poul ANDERSON's political views are based on more pragmatic grounds, and the same appears to be true of Jerry E. POURNELLE, although his collaboration with Larry NIVEN, Lucifer's Hammer (1977), employs some Social Darwinist arguments. Echoes of Sumner and Carnegie frequently resound in the work of genre libertarians, as they do more plangently in Ayn RAND's Objectivist tracts Anthem (1938) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). L. Ron HUBBARD's Return to Tomorrow (1954) is the most hysterically Social Darwinist work in genre sf, advocating that the human race commit universal genocide of all alien races to secure its hegemony. John W. CAMPBELL Jr was a notorious human chauvinist, but he made relatively little (and rather inconsistent) use of Social Darwinist ideas in his editorials. His variously argued defences of slavery as an institution inspired some of the odder fiction published in ASF, including Lloyd BIGGLE Jr's The World Menders (1971), and his opinion that mankind needs some kind of external enemy - if not actual, then imaginary - to maintain the competitive thrust of progress is also reflected in work by writers from his stable, notably Mack REYNOLDS, as in Space Visitor (1977). Lester DEL REY, whose early short stories displayed a strongly humanist outlook, seemingly embraces a kind of Social Darwinism in The Eleventh Commandment (1962; rev 1970).The idea that aliens should be seen primarily as Darwinian competitors has fallen into considerable disrepute in modern sf, but there has been a marked resurgence of Social Darwinist thinking in recent years in SURVIVALIST FICTION, mostly brutal action-adventure stuff in the vein of Jerry AHERN. Dean ING's Pulling Through (coll 1983) is more level-headed, while David BRIN's The Postman (fixup 1985) is profoundly sceptical of the Social Darwinist ethos of survivalism. [BS]See also: ECONOMICS; HISTORY IN SF; SOCIOLOGY. SOCIAL ENGINEERING CULTURAL ENGINEERING. SOCIETY Film (1989). Wild Street Pictures. Dir Brian Yuzna, starring Bill Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Ben Meyerson. Screenplay Woody Keith, Rick Fry. 99 mins. Colour."Society" (as in the upper classes) is an ALIEN race, parasitic on humanity (as in the poor), that has been around as long as humans have, but we learn this only at the end. In the tradition of 1980s schlock/surrealist horror cinema (e.g., RE-ANIMATOR [1985]), there is gross bad taste, but the film is unusual in the demureness of its first hour, and in its knowing and relentless use of metaphor, both visual and verbal. Bill is a wealthy teenage boy whose PARANOIA (he feels alienated from his family) turns out gradually to be justified. Intimations of incest and half-glimpsed bodily distortions deepen into the discovery by Bill of Society's devotion to "shunting", a combination of cuddling, tenderizing, sodomitic rape and cannibalism deplorably unpleasant for the human victims. The alien rich are shapeshifters capable of gazing out quizzically from their own rectums. The shock tactics of the climax struck some viewers as more nadir than peak; certainly Yuzna lacks the intensity of a David Lynch, and there is a strong element of gleeful childishness. But new cinematic ground is promisingly broken. [PN]See also: MONSTER MOVIES. SOCIOLOGY Sociology is the systematic study of society and social relationships. The word was coined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in the mid-19th century, and it was then that the first attempts were made to divorce studies of society employing the scientific method, on the one hand, from dogmatic political and ethical presuppositions, on the other. Social studies in a more general sense have, of course, a much longer history, going back to PLATO. Sociology and sf have a common precursor in UTOPIAN philosophy, which often used literary forms - most commonly the imaginary voyage - for the imaginative modelling of ideal societies ( FANTASTIC VOYAGES; PROTOSCIENCE FICTION). The evaluation and criticism of such models may be regarded as a crude form of hypothesis-testing. As utopian fiction evolved, more reliance was placed on literary techniques; the modelling of characters and personal relationships became a means of evaluating the "quality of life" in these hypothetical societies. The increasing use of such purely literary strategies in the late 19th century is also highly relevant to the evolution of DYSTOPIAN images of the future.Insofar as sf involves the construction of hypothetical societies, both human and nonhuman, it is an implicitly sociological literature and many observers - including Isaac ASIMOV - have described the sophistication of GENRE SF encouraged by John W. CAMPBELL Jr in terms of its becoming "more sociological". Any assumptions which are consciously or unconsciously deployed in the building of hypothetical societies are sociological hypotheses, and any attempt to construct a narrative which analyses or tracks changes within imaginary societies is a form of sociological theorizing. This is very rarely the primary purpose of sf writers, of course, but it is a significant aspect of their work. The investigation of "sociological themes" in sf has to be an examination of the fruits of this process rather than an exploration of the influence of academic sociology itself upon sf, because such influence is clearly negligible. Even works of sf which mirror formal sociological hypotheses - such as Keith ROBERTS's PAVANE (coll of linked stories 1968), which recalls the thesis of Max Weber (1864-1920) that a complicit relationship connects the Protestant Ethic and the rise of capitalism, in its depiction of an ALTERNATE WORLD in which modern Europe remains under Catholic domination - almost invariably do so unconsciously. Some sf writers have borrowed extensively from academic ANTHROPOLOGY in constructing ALIEN societies, but almost all have preferred to rely upon their own intuitive judgements regarding human society and social relationships.Some sf stories are quite straightforward thought-experiments in sociology: Philip WYLIE's The Disappearance (1951), Theodore STURGEON's Venus Plus X (1960) and Ursula K. LE GUIN's THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (1969) are notable examples investigating issues of sexual politics, while the brief account of a factory-society run according to the tenet of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" in Ayn RAND's Atlas Shrugged (1957) aspires to prove the impracticability of socialism. Poul ANDERSON's "The Helping Hand" (1950) carefully compares the fortunes of two conquered cultures, one of which accepts economic aid from its conquerors while the other - the "control group" - does not. Many of the classics of UK SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE - including Grant ALLEN's The British Barbarians (1895), J.D. BERESFORD's The Hampdenshire Wonder (1911), Aldous HUXLEY's BRAVE NEW WORLD (1932), Olaf STAPLEDON's Odd John (1935) and Eden PHILLPOTTS's Saurus (1938) - introduce an outside observer into a society in order to evaluate its merits and faults "objectively". If the society is contemporary, then the observer must be an sf artefact, like Allen's time-travelling anthropologist, Beresford's and Stapledon's SUPERMEN, and Phillpotts's alien; if the society is exotic then an ordinary human being will do. Such social displacements are a staple strategy of SATIRE, another common precursor of sociology and sf; works like the fourth book of Jonathan SWIFT's Gulliver's Travels (1726) and The Voyage of Captain Popanilla (1828) by Benjamin DISRAELI can embody scathing social criticism. Other modern sf novels using this strategy include Robert A. HEINLEIN's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961) and Robert SILVERBERG's The Masks of Time (1968; vt Vornan-19). An interesting MAINSTREAM novel in which sociologists investigate a cult whose MYTHOLOGY is sciencefictional in kind is Imaginary Friends (1967) by Alison Lurie (1926- ). Stories of the type that construct hypothetical "human studies" projects for alien sociologists - like S.P. SOMTOW's Mallworld (1981) and Karen Joy FOWLER's "The Poplar Street Study" (1985) and "The View from Venus" (1986)-tend to be darkly humorous and satirical.The quasiscientific activities featured in these kinds of sf are impracticable in the real world (although there are analogues in cultural anthropology) both because culture-bound sociologists find it virtually impossible to become "objective observers" and because they cannot construct actual societies by way of experiment. Natural scientists do not, for the most part, encounter problems of these kinds, and so the relationship between the social sciences and speculative fiction is markedly different from that involving the natural sciences; that is, sociological fiction may try to accomplish what the practical science cannot, and thus is a generator of ideas rather than a borrower. Ideas from speculative fiction are occasionally "fed back" into ways of thinking about the real world: Aldous HUXLEY's BRAVE NEW WORLD and George ORWELL's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1949) have had considerable influence on attitudes to social trends and actual political rhetoric. Some modern social theorists have built literary models to dramatize their theories, notably B.F. SKINNER in Walden Two (1948) and Michael YOUNG in The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958). Where Skinner's work is a utopia, Young's is a DYSTOPIA - he promotes his own ideas by displaying the folly of opposite ideas in action. The US sociologist Richard Ofshe (1941- ) compiled an anthology of sf stories, with appropriate commentary, as a textbook on The Sociology of the Possible (anth 1970); John Milstead, Martin H. GREENBERG, Joseph D. OLANDER and Patricia S. WARRICK's Sociology through Science Fiction (anth 1974) and Social Problems through Science Fiction (anth 1975) are similar but less competent.The simple classification of hypothetical societies into satires, utopias and dystopias serves moderately well for models built outside genre sf, but GENRE-SF writers are very rarely concerned with trying to design ideal societies, and, although they do have a tendency to offer dire polemical warnings about the way the world is going, the extent to which their visions may be described as satirical or dystopian has also been exaggerated. Sf writers often try to envisage forms of society which are quite simply conceivable; they invent for the sheer joy of invention, and often it does them some disservice to invoke the commonplace category labels. For example, although the first significant model of a purely hypothetical society, H.G. WELLS's THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1901), has definite dystopian aspects, such a classification would be too narrow, and the same is true of many subsequent novels which take the ant-nest as their model ( HIVE-MINDS).Another interesting early example of a hypothetical society which is really neither a satire nor a dystopia is The Revolt of Man (1882) by Walter BESANT, the prototype of a whole subgenre of stories depicting female-dominated societies. Its assumptions regarding the structure and fortunes of the society clearly reveal the main tenets of Victorian male chauvinism, and it makes an interesting comparison with more recent explorations of the same theme, including Edmund COOPER's Five to Twelve (1968), Robert BLOCH's Ladies' Day (1968 dos) and Thomas BERGER's Regiment of Women (1973). This is one of the commonest themes in social modelling. Its early phases are tracked by Sam MOSKOWITZ in When Women Rule (anth 1972), and further relevant fictions include J.D. BERESFORD's Goslings (1913; vt A World of Women US), Owen M. JOHNSON's The Coming of the Amazons (1931), Philip WYLIE's The Disappearance (1951), Richard WILSON's The Girls from Planet 5 (1955), John WYNDHAM's "Consider Her Ways" (1956), Charles Eric MAINE's World without Men (1958; vt Alph), Poul ANDERSON's Virgin Planet (1959) and Edmund COOPER's Who Needs Men (1972; vt Gender Genocide). Sf stories in which the social roles associated with the sexes are in some fashion revised have become a highly significant instrument of ideative exploration in the hands of FEMINIST writers. Outstanding works of this kind include Joanna RUSS's THE FEMALE MAN (1975) and Marge PIERCY's WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME (1976). In the UK The Women's Press has an sf line, and many of the books published by the radical lesbian Onlywomen Press are sf.Both The Revolt of Man and THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON show "distorted societies" constructed by altering a single variable in a quasi-experimental fashion. Outside GENRE SF such distortions are almost always invoked for dystopian or satirical ends, but inside the genre distortion often seems to be an end in itself. Alien societies have been used in sf for satirical purposes - Stanton A. COBLENTZ made a habit of it in such works as The Blue Barbarians (1931; 1958) and Hidden World (1935; 1957; vt In Caverns Below) - but this is comparatively rare. The most memorable nonhuman societies in sf - they are so numerous that any list has to be highly selective - reflect a far more open-minded kind of creativity: Clifford D. SIMAK's CITY (1944-51; fixup 1952), L. Sprague DE CAMP's Rogue Queen (1951), Philip Jose FARMER's THE LOVERS (1952; exp 1961), James BLISH's "A Case of Conscience" (1953), Poul ANDERSON's War of the Wing-Men (1958; vt The Man who Counts) and The People of the Wind (1973), Brian W. ALDISS's The Dark Light Years (1964), Isaac ASIMOV's THE GODS THEMSELVES (1972), Stanley SCHMIDT's The Sins of the Fathers (1976), David LAKE's The Right Hand of Dextra (1977), Ian WATSON's and Michael BISHOP's Under Heaven's Bridge (1981), Phillip MANN's The Eye of the Queen (1982) and Timothy ZAHN's A Coming of Age (1985). Distorted human societies are even more numerous, but some notable examples are: Wyman GUIN's "Beyond Bedlam" (1951), Frederik POHL's and C.M. KORNBLUTH's THE SPACE MERCHANTS (1953), James E. GUNN's The Joy Makers (fixup 1961), Jack VANCE's The Languages of Pao (1958), Alexei PANSHIN's RITE OF PASSAGE (1963; exp 1968), John JAKES's Mask of Chaos (1970), Robert SILVERBERG's A TIME OF CHANGES (1971), Samuel R. DELANY's Triton (1976), Ludek PESEK's A Trap for Perseus (1976; trans 1980), George ZEBROWSKI's Macrolife (1979), Bruce STERLING's SCHISMATRIX (1985), Keith ROBERTS's Kiteworld (1985) and Philip Jose FARMER's Dayworld (1985). Implicit in all these stories, whatever their immediate dramatic purpose, are arguments about directions and limits of social possibility.One of the commonest forms of sociological thought-experiment in sf is that of taking society apart and building it up again. Many stories of this type are discussed in the sections on DISASTER and HOLOCAUST AND AFTER; classic examples include S. Fowler WRIGHT's Deluge (1928) and Dawn (1929), George R. STEWART's EARTH ABIDES (1949) and Walter M. MILLER's A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (1955-7; fixup 1960). The pattern of social disintegration is subject to detailed scrutiny in William GOLDING's Lord of the Flies (1954), while the building of a society from scratch is satirically featured in E.C. LARGE's Dawn in Andromeda (1956). Investigations of the theme range in character from outright HORROR stories to ROBINSONADES, often steering a very uneasy course between realism and romanticism.Many particular fields within sociology are not widely reflected in sf, but there is an abundance of stories bearing upon issues in the sociology of RELIGION, including Heinlein's "If This Goes On . . ." (1940), Bertrand RUSSELL's "Zahatopolk" (1954), Miller's A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, Anderson's "The Problem of Pain" (1973) and Gerald Jonas's "The Shaker Revival" (1970). There is no such abundance of stories relating to the sociology of science, largely because most sf - unlike most mundane fiction - treats religion sceptically and science reverently; but Asimov's THE GODS THEMSELVES includes some shrewd observations on the working of the community of SCIENTISTS, as does Howard L. MYERS's pointed comedy "Out, Wit!" (1972). An interesting exercise in hypothetical applied sociology is featured in Katherine MACLEAN's "The Snowball Effect" (1952), in which a sociologist draws up an incentive scheme which permits the Watashaw Ladies Sewing Circle to recruit the entire world (the technique later became known in the real world as "pyramid selling"). The definitive sf exercise in the sociology of POLITICS is Michael D. RESNICK's vivid account of the COLONIZATION and subsequent "liberation" of Paradise (1989). Sociologists working in the field of demography play a key role in Hilbert SCHENCK's curious timeslip romance, A ROSE FOR ARMAGEDDON (1982), although they rarely feature in stories of OVERPOPULATION.The marked shift in the emphasis of genre sf away from scientific hardware towards sociological issues has had several causes. Sheer literary sophistication is one; the expansion of the sf audience to take in many readers (and writers) who have little scientific education is another. It also reflects a growing awareness of the pace of social change and of insistent challenges to social values which were once supported by wider consensus. Elementary features of social organization like the family are increasingly subject to the erosions of individual liberty. Commonplace social problems like crime ( CRIME AND PUNISHMENT) and care of the aged and the sick are becoming magnified - ironically, by virtue of the very success of the technologies which have been brought to bear on the problems. The fact that social situations do and will determine the context in which scientific inventions are and will be made and used was frequently glossed over by early sf writers, but is now clearly recognized. The slowly but steadily growing interest in sf may be a symptom of wider recognition of the acceleration of social change and the imaginative utility of sociological thought-experiments; if so, the academic study of sf ( SF IN THE CLASSROOM) might perhaps be a matter more suited to sociologists than to students of literature per se. [BS]See also: CITIES; HISTORY IN SF; LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; LINGUISTICS; SOCIAL DARWINISM; TABOOS; WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION. SOFT SF This not very precise item of sf TERMINOLOGY, formed by analogy with HARD SF, is generally applied either to sf that deals with the SOFT SCIENCES or to sf that does not deal with recognizable science at all, but emphasizes human feelings. The contrasting of soft sf with hard sf is sometimes illogical. Stories of PSI POWERS or SUPERMEN, for example, have little to do with real science, but are regularly regarded by sf readers as hard sf. The NEW WAVE was generally associated with soft sf; CYBERPUNK falls somewhere between the two. [PN] SOFT SCIENCES In academic slang and sf TERMINOLOGY, the soft sciences are in the main the social sciences, those which deal mainly with human affairs - very often the sciences that require little or no hardware for their carrying out. (Most would claim BIOLOGY and subsidiary fields - e.g., CLONES and GENETIC ENGINEERING - as hard sciences [ HARD SF].) Theme entries in this volume which deal directly or indirectly with soft sciences include ANTHROPOLOGY, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, EVOLUTION, FUTUROLOGY, INTELLIGENCE, LINGUISTICS, PERCEPTION, PSYCHOLOGY and SOCIOLOGY. The soft sciences very often work through statistics, and hard scientists have been known to despise them for their lack of rigour and their occasional difficulty in predicting quantifiable results; sociology has been particularly criticized in this context. Sf that deals primarily with the soft sciences is sometimes known as SOFT SF. [PN] SOHL, JERRY Working name of US writer and former journalist Gerald Allan Sohl Sr (1913- ), active from about 1950 in sf and other genres as JS and under various pseudonyms, including Nathan Butler and Sean Mei Sullivan. He began publishing sf with "The 7th Order" for Gal in 1952, and soon released The Haploids (1952), the first of several 1950s novels whose slick surface and sharp economy of scale marked him as a professional craftsman. These books include Transcendent Man (1953), Costigan's Needle (1953) - which deftly depicts the colonizing of a PARALLEL WORLD - The Altered Ego (1954) - which ingeniously treats as a problem in detection an IMMORTALITY puzzle involving personality recordings, though without the concept of CLONES the technology of transference was clearly unwieldy - and Point Ultimate (1955), a fine example of 1950s PARANOIA in its picture of Russians occupying the USA through use of a plague virus. In all these books JS's use of science, though attractive, seems in hindsight somewhat opportunistic, and several of them fail ultimately to make much sense of the premises they dramatize. His sf output began to slacken by the end of the decade, though he remained active in other areas, several non-sf novels being published as by Butler. Of his later sf, The Odious Ones (1959) and Night Slaves (1965), later televised, best demonstrate his competence. From 1958 JS did considerable tv work, including scripts, under various names, for The INVADERS , The OUTER LIMITS, STAR TREK and The TWILIGHT ZONE . [JC]Other works: The Mars Monopoly (1956 dos); The Time Dissolver (1957); One Against Herculum (1959 dos); The Anomaly (1971); I, Aleppo (as "I am Aleppo" in The New Mind [anth 1973] ed Roger ELWOOD; exp 1976); Death Sleep (1983); Kaheesh (1983) as by Nathan Butler. SOKOpsOWSKI, KRZYSZTOF (1955- ) Polish critic, translator and editor, author of the POLAND entry in this encyclopedia. A graduate of Warsaw University, KS is well known for his critical pieces on US-UK sf in the magazine Fantastyka. Since its foundation in 1990 he has been editor of Fenix, the first privately owned professional sf magazine in Poland; he is also a professional translator of sf. [PN] SOLARIS 1. French-language Canadian magazine. CANADA; Luc POMERLEAU; Daniel SERNINE.2. Russian film (1971). Mosfilm. Dir Andrei TARKOVSKY, starring Donatas Banionis, Natalia Bondarchuk, Youri Jarvet, Anatoli Solinitsin. Screenplay Tarkovsky, Friedrich Gorenstein, based on SOLARIS (1961; trans 1970) by Stanislaw LEM. 165 mins; first US version 132 mins. Colour.This long, ambitious rendering of Lem's metaphysical novel is regarded by some as one of the finest sf films made; a minority sees it as tediously slow-moving. S changes the emphasis of the story from the intellectual to the emotional, partly by restructuring the narrative, which in the film is framed by elegiac and nostalgic sequences at the country house of the young space-scientist hero's parents, focusing on the scientist's relationship with his father; the opening passage is on Earth, the closing passage on Solaris's recreation of Earth. The main action is set on a space-station hovering above the planet Solaris, whose ever-changing ocean is thought to be organic and sentient. The protagonist finds the station in disrepair and his colleagues demoralized by the materialization of "phantoms" (quite real and solid) of their innermost obsessions; soon he is himself haunted by a reincarnation of his suicided wife. These phantoms may be an attempt by Solaris to communicate. Horrified, he kills the phantom wife, but a replica arrives that night. Ultimately he recognizes that, no matter what her source, she is both living and lovable; but while he sleeps she connives at her own exorcism. Solaris remains an enigma. The philosophical questions about the limits of human understanding are not put so sharply as in the book, but the visual images, despite occasionally mediocre special effects, are potent - haunting leitmotivs of water, sundering screens, technology and snow. [PN]See also: MUSIC; RUSSIA; SPACE HABITATS. SOLAR WIND This scientific term has found much favour in sf TERMINOLOGY. The stars constantly emit highly energetic particles as well as, of course, light, which is itself composed of tiny particles, photons (although here the word "particle" has a slightly different meaning). These particles exert a gentle outward pressure (which is why the tail of a comet always points away from the Sun). A low-mass spacecraft with a huge, incredibly thin sail, perhaps made of aluminium, could take advantage of this pressure just as a yacht uses wind - hence the proliferation of rather charming space-sailing stories, including "The Lady who Sailed the Soul" (1960) by Cordwainer SMITH and "Sunjammer" (1964; vt "The Wind from the Sun") by Arthur C. CLARKE. An anthology including 4 original stories, a number of reprints and some nonfiction is Project Solar Sail (anth 1990) ed Clarke and (anon) David BRIN. [PN] SOLO, JAY [s] Harlan ELLISON. SOLOGUB, FYODOR Pseudonym of Russian poet and novelist Fyodor-Kuzmich Teternikov (1863-1927), who remains best known for his second novel, Melkii bes (1907; best trans R. Wilks as The Little Demon 1962 UK); the title refers to the apotheosis of numbing mediocrity, mercilessly depicted, which devours the schoolteacher protagonist. FS's third novel, Tvorimaia legenda (1907-13 Shipovnik, then Zemlya; cut 1914; part 1 only of cut text trans John Cournos as The Created Legend 1916 UK; complete trans Samuel D. Cioran of restored text in 3 vols as The Created Legend 1979 US), is sf, though of a strange order. The 1st vol describes the life in 1905 Russia of the protagonist who-pedagogue, inventor, sybarite and mage - clearly represents a wish-fulfilment version of the author. The 2nd describes the RURITANIAN kingdom of the United Isles, threatened by volcanoes and dynastic upheavals. In the 3rd, after successfully applying to become king - echoes of Frederick ROLFE's Hadrian VII (1904) are clear - the protagonist escapes Russia in a spherical flying device of his own invention and enters into his meritocratic heritage. The text as a whole irretrievably mixes superscience, Satanism, an eroticized vision of history, SATIRE and dream. The Sweet-Scented Name, and Other Fairy Tales, Fables and Stories (coll trans Stephen Graham 1915 UK) and The Old House and Other Tales (coll trans John Cournos 1916 UK) contain some fantasies. [JC] SOL RISING The quarterly newsletter of the MERRIL COLLECTION OF SCIENCE FICTION, SPECULATION AND FANTASY. SOMERS, BART Gardner F. FOX. SOMETHING ELSE UK SEMIPROZINE, 3 issues (Spring 1980, Winter 1980, Spring 1984), small- BEDSHEET format, published and ed Charles Partington from Manchester. This was a short-lived but brave attempt by Partington, who had previously edited ALIEN WORLDS, to continue the NEW WORLDS tradition. Many of the stalwarts of NW appeared, including Brian W. ALDISS, Hilary BAILEY, John BRUNNER, M. John HARRISON and Michael MOORCOCK. Like its more illustrious predecessor, SE did not get the distribution it deserved. [RR] SOMETHING IS OUT THERE 1. US/Australian tv miniseries (1988). CPT Holdings/Hoyts for NBC. Executive prods Frank Lupo, John Ashley. Dir Richard Colla, starring Joe Cortese, Maryam d'Abo, George Dzundza. Written Lupo. 2 100min episodes.This sometimes exciting, often threadbare policier pits a tough Earth cop (Cortese) and a marooned, telepathic medical officer from an ALIEN prison spaceship (d'Abo) - she looks both human and beautiful-against an escaped alien "xenomorph", extremely dangerous and capable of invading a human host (as in The HIDDEN [1988], which SIOT strongly resembles). In romantic buddy-movie style, he teaches her Earth customs and she teaches him monster-catching. Rick Baker's creature effects are good; the pacing is bad; the ending is ambiguous. An edited version (165 mins) was released on videotape.2. US tv series (1989). NBC. 8 50min episodes, the last two not aired in the USA. After the promising if uneven pilot miniseries, the series proper, again starring Cortese and d'Abo, was disappointing: crime-fighting cliches, unremarkable scripts, and little use made of the extraterrestrial elements. [PN] SOMTOW, S.P. Working name of Thai composer and writer Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul (1952- ), who used his surname from the beginning of his career to 1985, when he switched to SPS, announcing that any book previously signed Sucharitkul would be signed SPS on reprinting (although some children's books continued to appear under the earlier form of his name). After university education in the UK and a period in the USA, SPS began in recent years to spend about half his time in Thailand and half in the USA. His first publication of any genre interest was a poem, "Kith of Infinity", which appeared in the Bangkok Press in 1967 and was assembled - along with early stories like "Sunsteps" (1977 Unearth) - in Fire from the Wine Dark Sea (coll 1983). He won the JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD for Best New Writer in 1981.His first novel, Starship and Haiku (1981), is typical of much of his work: the tale takes place in a crowded but fluid venue, with culture shocks leading to ornate resolutions; in this case, the citizens of a post- HOLOCAUST Earth are committing suicide, but whales contact Japanese survivors (with whom they share a genetic heritage) and the novel closes as a new hybrid species sets off for the stars.The Chronicles of the High Inquest sequence - Light on the Sound (1982; rev vt The Dawning Shadow #1: Light on the Sound 1986), The Throne of Madness (1983; rev vt The Dawning Shadow #2: The Throne of Madness 1986), Utopia Hunters (coll of linked stories 1984) and The Darkling Wind (1985) - again injects whale-like sentients into a complex mix, following the interactions of the mutilated humans who hunt them on instructions from the Inquestors, a Galaxy-spanning race whose pretensions to moral superiority are harshly examined as the sequence advances. In the end, the Inquestor race dies in cataclysm, leaving a deposit of myth for later races to decipher. Other sf of interest includes the ALTERNATE-WORLD Aquiliad sequence - The Aquiliad (1983; vt The Aquiliad: Aquila in the New World 1988), The Aquiliad #2: Aquila and the Iron Horse (1988) and #3: Aquila and the Sphinx (1988) - set in a Western Hemisphere dominated by the Roman Empire; a resident time traveller injects a malicious note of imbalance and insecurity, generating a state of fluid near-chaos typical of SPS at his best. Sf singletons include Mallworld (coll of linked stories 1981), in which the eponymous venue doubles as an observation post for ALIENS fascinated by the human race; and The Shattered Horse (1986), another alternate-world tale in which the Trojans win.At about the time he changed his byline he also began to move from sf into fantasy and horror, notably with the Valentine sequence of vampire novels - Vampire Junction (1984) and Valentine (1992 UK) - and Moondance (1989), a powerful werewolf tale. It is to be hoped, however, that he will continue to contribute sf tales which reflect his quicksilver, sea-change imagination. [JC]Other works: 2 "V" novelizations, The Alien Swordmaster * (1985) and Symphony of Terror * (1988); The Fallen Country (1986), for children; Forgetting Places (1987), associational; Riverrun (1991), first volume of the projected Riverrun or Darkling Wars sequence, comprising Riverrun (1991), Forest of the Night (1992) and Music of Madness (1993); Fiddling for Waterbuffaloes (1986 ASF; 1992 chap)I Wake from a Dream of a Drowned Star City (1992 chap); The Wizard's Apprentice (1993); Jasmine Nights (1994 UK), an associational novel with autobiographical elements.See also: ANTHROPOLOGY; ECOLOGY; GALACTIC EMPIRES; ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE; MESSIAHS; MUSIC; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE OPERA. SONDERS, MARK Michael BERLYN. SONGWEAVER, CERIN [s] Charles DE LINT. SON OF BLOB The BLOB . SON OF GODZILLA GOJIRA. SON OF KONG Film (1933). RKO. Dir Ernest B. Schoedsack, starring Robert Armstrong, Helen Mack, Frank Reicher, Noble Johnson. Screenplay Ruth Rose. 70 mins. B/w.This film was made immediately after KING KONG (1933) as a small-scale sequel. The hero returns to Skull Island and discovers Kong's son, a 20ft (6m) white ape with all the characteristics of a friendly puppy. Various prehistoric monsters appear before a volcanic upheaval destroys the island. The ape saves the hero by holding him above the flood waters. There are good special effects by Willis H. O'BRIEN, but the film is obviously a rush job to cash in on the success of the original, whose mythic resonance this lacks. [JB] SOREL, EDWARD (1929- ) US illustrator and writer. In Moon Missing: An Illustrated Guide to the Future (1962) the MOON disappears and the early 1960s are satirized. The illustrations are more satisfyingly vindictive than the text. [PN] SOUCEK, LUDVIK [r] CZECH AND SLOVAK SF. SOUKUP, MARTHA (1959- ) US writer whose work, beginning with "Dress Rehearsal" for Universe 16 (anth 1986) ed Terry CARR, has been restricted to short stories, and who has published several stories whose surface clarity conceals taxingly insistent examinations of readerly assumptions. Some of this work is assembled in Rosemary's Brain and Other Tales of Weird Wonder (coll 1992 chap). MS won a NEBULA Award for Best Story for "A Defense of Social Contracts" (1994). [JC] SOUTH, CLARK [s] Dwight V. SWAIN. SOUTH AMERICA LATIN AMERICA. SOUTHERN, TERRY [r] Peter GEORGE. SOUTHWOLD, STEPHEN Neil BELL. SOVIET UNION The vast majority of the sf from what until 1991 was the Soviet Union, especially that translated into English, was in the first instance written and published in Russian ( RUSSIA). A small amount of Soviet sf exists in the various languages other than Russian, notably Ukrainian, in which the dissident writer Oles Berdnyk writes. Little of this material has been translated into Russian, let alone English. The break-up of the USSR will certainly in due course increase interest from both within and outside their borders in the native writings of the new (or re-established) nations. [PN] SOWDEN, LEWIS (1905-1974) UK-born South African writer and newspaperman whose Tomorrow's Comet (1949 Blue Book as "Star of Doom"; 1951 UK) treats the END OF THE WORLD in psychological terms. [JC/PN]Other works: The Man who was Emperor: A Romance (1946 UK). SOYKA, OTTO [r] AUSTRIA. SOYLENT GREEN Film (1973). MGM. Dir Richard Fleischer, starring Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten, Paula Kelly. Screenplay Stanley R. Greenberg, based on MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! (1966) by Harry HARRISON. 97 mins. Colour.A New York police detective (Heston) in an AD2022 marked by OVERPOPULATION investigates what appears to be a routine murder and in the end discovers that "soylent green", the main food for the world's population, is actually made from dead human bodies. The plot has little to do with Harrison's book, whose pro-contraception message it nervously avoids for fear of alienating Roman Catholic viewers (Harrison has spoken eloquently of the perversion of his work), but the vision of a teeming, overpopulated and festering New York is recreated quite well. The cannibalistic denouement is purely for shock value, and makes no rational sense; indeed Harrison coined the word "soylent" from "soy beans" and "lentils", and the people of his future are largely and necessarily vegetarian. Edward G. Robinson's fine performance as a dying old man coaxed into a euthanasia clinic is touching, for he was dying in real life as well. The film won a NEBULA. [JB/PN] SPACE ADVENTURES SPACE ADVENTURES (CLASSICS). SPACE ADVENTURES (CLASSICS) One of the reprint DIGEST-size magazines published by Sol Cohen's Ultimate Publishing Co. 6 issues Winter 1970-Summer 1971. The title was shortened to Space Adventures after the first 2. The numbering ran, strangely, #9-#14, apparently picking up where SCIENCE FICTION (ADVENTURE) CLASSICS left off, and SAC would be regarded as simply a variant title were it not that the latter resumed publication, also in Winter 1970, with #12. Most of SA(C)'s stories were reprinted from AMAZING STORIES, from the rather dismal period of Raymond A. PALMER's editorship. [BS] SPACE CAMP Film (1986). ABC. Dir Harry Winer, starring Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Larry B. Scott, Leaf Phoenix, Tate Donovan, Tom Skerritt. Screenplay W.W. Wicket, Casey T. Mitchell, from a story by Patrick Bailey, Larry B. Williams. 108 mins. Colour.At a NASA-sponsored summer space camp, a flight simulation in a space shuttle becomes the real thing after the intervention of a well meaning ROBOT, and 4 teenagers and a small boy have to replenish their oxygen from a satellite and then bring the shuttle down again. With the help of the Force (from STAR WARS [1977]) and their own self-reliance they manage. This implausible but patriotic advertisement for Teamwork and the American Way has plenty of tension (and, in the wake of the Challenger disaster, plenty of bad taste), but stereotyped characters, mediocre process work in the space scenes and flat direction render it routine. [PN] SPACE CHILDREN, THE Film (1958). Paramount. Dir Jack ARNOLD, starring Michel Ray, Adam Williams, Peggy Webber, Johnny Crawford, Jackie Coogan. Screenplay Bernard C. Schoenfeld, from a story by Tom Filer. 69 mins. B/w.This was the last of Arnold's cycle of sf films with producer William Alland, though here the studio is Paramount, not Universal. In this earnest but likeable moral fable, a group of children are "taken over" by a benign ALIEN resembling a glowing brain (which expands as the film progresses). The peace-loving alien's aim is to use the children in the sabotage of a missile project on which their parents are working, and it gives them special powers to help them do this. The alien is not entirely a pacifist; it kills the brutal father of one of the children. Arnold makes his usual evocative use of landscape - this time a remote beach. [JB/PN] SPACE COLONIES SPACE HABITATS. SPACED INVADERS Film (1989). Smart Egg Pictures. Dir Patrick Read Johnson, starring Douglas Barr, Royal Dano, Ariana Richards, J.J. Anderson, Gregg Berger, Fred Applegate. Screenplay Johnson, Scott Alexander. 100 mins. Colour.This spoof, obviously made for younger viewers, starts promisingly with the premise that the diminutive crew of a Martian spaceship, in the middle of a battle, pick up the radio signal of Orson Welles's broadcast of WAR OF THE WORLDS, and hasten to Earth to join the presumptive Martian invasion, only to find a disinterested population (in small-town Illinois) more or less ignoring them, or mistaking them for trick-or-treating children. The ensuing gags seldom rise above poorly choreographed knockabout farce, with no great ingenuity but a perceptible flavour of bigotry. [PN] SPACED OUT LIBRARY MERRIL COLLECTION OF SCIENCE FICTION, SPECULATION AND FANTASY. SPACE FACT AND FICTION UK magazine, PULP-MAGAZINE size. 8 monthly issues Mar-Oct 1954, several undated, published by G.G. Swan, London; ed anon. SFAF published mainly reprints from wartime issues of FUTURE FICTION and SCIENCE FICTION, slanted towards the juvenile reader, but also new stories; the Apr 1954 issue was all new. An album of unsold copies in jumbled order was issued, presumably as a Christmas annual. [FHP] SPACE FLIGHT Flight into space is the classic theme in sf. The lunar romances of Francis GODWIN, CYRANO DE BERGERAC et al. are the works most commonly and readily identified as PROTO SCIENCE FICTION. In modern times, as GENRE SF spilled out of print into the CINEMA, RADIO and TELEVISION, many of the archetypal works produced for these media were romances of space travel. Flight into space provides the stirring climax of the film THINGS TO COME (1936) and the subject-matter of DESTINATION MOON (1950) and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), as well as of Charles CHILTON's BBC radio serial Journey into Space (1953) and its sequels, and tv's STAR TREK. The landing of Apollo 11 on the MOON was seen by many as "science fiction come true". It is natural that sf should be symbolized by the theme of space flight, in that it is primarily concerned with transcending imaginative boundaries, with breaking free of the gravitational force which holds consciousness to a traditional core of belief and expectancy. The means by which space flight has been achieved in sf - its many and various SPACESHIPS - have always been of secondary importance to the mythical impact of the theme. Only a handful of writers - notably Konstantin TSIOLKOVSKY - embodied real scientific ideas about the feasibility of space ROCKETS in fictional form for didactic purposes.Actually, all the early lunar voyages are stories of flight rather than of space flight, in that their authors took for granted the continuity of an atmospheric "ether" (a convenience ingeniously co-opted into modern sf by Bob SHAW in THE RAGGED ASTRONAUTS [1986] and its sequels). No early travellers had to contend with the interplanetary vacuum, not even the hero of Edgar Allan POE's "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835; rev 1840), although this was the first of the traveller's tales in which the protagonist takes elaborate precautions to provide himself with air, in recognition of the tenuousness of the sublunar atmosphere. All romances of interplanetary flight prior to "Hans Pfaall" are didactic - either straightforwardly, after the fashion of Johannes KEPLER's Somnium (1634) and Gabriel Daniel's A Voyage to the World of Cartesius (1690), or satirically, after the fashion of Daniel DEFOE's The Consolidator (1705). Poe's story is a satire, too, although the author advanced claims as to its verisimilitude. But it was really Jules VERNE who made the first serious attempt at realism in De la terre a la lune (1865; trans J.K. Hoyte as From the Earth to the Moon 1869 US) and its sequel Autour de la lune (1870; both trans Lewis Mercier and Eleanor King as From the Earth to the Moon 1873 UK). Hindsight invests 19th-century lunar romances with the same mythical significance that sf has more recently lent to the notion of space travel, but the stories had no such significance in their own day. The idea of flight into space became the central myth of sf only once the genre had been identified and demarcated by Hugo GERNSBACK. This was not really a strategic move on Gernsback's part: his interest in the future and in the effect of TECHNOLOGY on society was more catholic-with space travel as only one among a whole series of probable developments. It was because of the kind of impact sf made on the readers who discovered it - young, for the most part - that space flight acquired its special significance. Many sf readers found in sf a kind of revelation, a sudden mind-opening shock ( CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; SENSE OF WONDER): this was not the effect of any single story but the discovery of sf as a category, a genre of fictions presenting an infinity of possibilities. It is because of this element of revelation, the sudden awareness of a vast range of possibilities, that the paradigmatic examples of early sf are stories of escape from Earth into a Universe filled with worlds: the first SPACE OPERAS, notably E.E. "Doc" SMITH's The Skylark of Space (1928; 1946).As with other themes in sf, the post-WWII period saw considerable sophistication of the myth of space flight. Significantly, and perhaps contrary to popular belief, there was relatively little development in verisimilitude outside the work of a very few technically adept authors. The most significant post-WWII stories related to the theme are not so much stories about space flight as commentaries upon the myth itself; they are concerned with imaginative horizons rather than hardware. One of the earliest examples of this kind of commentary is Ray BRADBURY's "King of the Gray Spaces" (1943; vt "R is for Rocket"); the classics are Robert A. HEINLEIN's "The Man who Sold the Moon" (1950) and Arthur C. CLARKE's Prelude to Space (1951). Others include Murray LEINSTER's "The Story of Rod Cantrell" (1949), Fredric BROWN's The Lights in the Sky are Stars (1953; vt Project Jupiter 1954 UK), Walter M. MILLER's "Death of a Spaceman" (1954; vt "Memento Homo") and Dean MCLAUGHLIN's The Man who Wanted Stars (fixup 1965). The mythic significance of the theme is most obvious in a story in which "space flight" is, from the viewpoint of the reader, purely metaphorical: James BLISH's "Surface Tension" (1952), in which a microscopic man builds himself a protective shell and forces his way up through the surface of a pond into the open air. Also notable is a short story by Edmond HAMILTON, "The Pro" (1964), in which an ageing sf writer meets up with the reality of the myth when his son goes into space.Sf writers often became annoyed when, following Neil Armstrong's Moon landing in 1969, they were asked what they would find to write about in the future. In fact, a subtle change did overcome sf during the course of the Apollo programme. Since then, stories about space flight within the Solar System have been "demystified", and we have a generation of stories in which spacemen operating within a "real" context come into conflict with the myth: Barry N. MALZBERG's The Falling Astronauts (1971), Nigel BALCHIN's Kings of Infinite Space (1967), Ludek PESEK's Die Marsexpedition (1970 Germany; trans Anthea Bell as The Earth is Near 1974) and Dan SIMMONS's Phases of Gravity (1989) are examples; while J.G. BALLARD has for some time been writing nostalgic stories which regard the space programme as a glorious folly of the 1960s (8 are collected in the ironically titled Memories of the Space Age [coll 1988]). Sf novels which bitterly assume that a second break-out into space may well be necessary if the actual space programme is allowed to fade away include The Man who Corrupted Earth (1980) by G.C. EDMONDSON and Privateers (1985) by Ben BOVA. However, the myth of transcending the closed world of the known and familiar is now more often tied specifically to interstellar travel, as in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Poul ANDERSON's Tau Zero (1967; exp 1970), Vonda MCINTYRE's Superluminal (1984) and some of the stories in Faster than Light (anth 1976) ed Jack DANN and George ZEBROWSKI. Star-drives which free mankind from the prison of the Solar System take on an iconic significance in such novels as TAKE BACK PLENTY (1990) by Colin GREENLAND and Carve the Sky (1991) by Alexander JABLOKOV. [BS]See also: FASTER THAN LIGHT; GALACTIC EMPIRES. SPACE HABITATS Stories of space stations or artificial satellites appear early in sf, the first example being Edward Everett HALE's extraordinary "The Brick Moon" (1869) and its sequel "Life in the Brick Moon" (1870), in which the satellite of the title consists of many brick spheres connected by brick arches, and is launched, with people on board, by gigantic flywheels. Kurd LASSWITZ's Auf Zwei Planeten (1897; cut trans as Two Planets 1971 US) has Martian space stations shaped like spoked wheels floating above the poles, but these are kept hovering by gravity-control devices of a somewhat implausible kind. The first detailed and thoroughly scientific treatment is in Konstantin TSIOLKOVSKY's Vne zemli (written 1896-1920; 1920; trans as "Out of the Earth" in The Call of the Cosmos 1963 Russia), a semifictionalized didactic speculation; it deals with free fall, space greenhouses for growing food, communication via space mirrors, and artificial GRAVITY effected by spinning the station on its axis - indeed, much of the spectrum of space-habitat ideas that would first begin to appear in any profusion after WWII, at a time when space travel by ROCKETS was generally realized to be something actually likely to happen.A highly influential book of popular science, dealing with (among other things) the construction of space stations was The Conquest of Space (1949) by Willy LEY, illustrated by Chesley BONESTELL, and it was after this that the space-station story began to appear commonly in GENRE SF. However, the idea was not new to the genre, a celebrated earlier example being George O. SMITH's Venus Equilateral stories, published in ASF from 1942, about a communications space station in a Trojan position (60deg ahead of the planet) in the orbit of Venus.The image of the space habitat presented through the 1950s was usually (though not always) as a way station, a stopping-off point prior to flights deeper into space. Indeed, the usual term of the time was "space station"; another book by Ley was titled Space Stations (1958). Such stations were envisaged as being in Earth orbit, the first place you reach after leaving Earth. We see this image of the stopping-off place quite often in movies, an early example being CONQUEST OF SPACE (1955) and a later one 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), and of course in books, as in Arthur C. CLARKE's children's novel Islands in the Sky (1952). Other 1950s books and stories in which the space station is totemic include Rafe BERNARD's The Wheel in the Sky (1954), Frank Belknap LONG's Space Station No 1 (1957 dos), James E. GUNN's Station in Space (1958) and Damon KNIGHT's psychological melodrama about the trauma of meeting an alien, "Stranger Station" (1959).One version of the theme that might have been expected to play a far greater role than it actually has in genre sf is the space station as menace, as a weapons-delivery platform in space easily able to target any point on Earth's surface. This notion has popped up occasionally in films, such as MOONRAKER (1979) (biological warfare) and HELLFIRE (1986) (a new energy source that can fry people). An early novel to use the theme is C.M. KORNBLUTH's Not This August (1955; vt Christmas Eve 1956 UK), in which it is hoped that a military space station will evict the Russians occupying the USA.Although this Earth-orbit phase of the space-station story has now largely been superseded, there is still in HARD SF a sense of real nuts-and-bolts excitement when the actual building of one is envisaged, and books are still written on the theme; e. g., Donald KINGSBURY's The Moon Goddess and the Son (1979 ASF; exp 1986) and Allen STEELE's Orbital Decay (1989).Soon, as the space station became absorbed into GENRE SF as one of its primary icons, they were popping up all over the place, not just in Earth orbit. We can obviously regard (perhaps not very usefully) all SPACESHIPS as space habitats, not to mention hollowed-out ASTEROIDS and, of course, GENERATION STARSHIPS. Alien space habitats of incredible complexity may be stumbled across by human observers, who have to make sense of their enigmatic qualities and deduce their purpose and the lifeforms for which they were built ( BIG DUMB OBJECTS). 3 such works are Clarke's RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA (1973), John VARLEY's Gaean trilogy (1979-84) and Greg BEAR's EON (1985).One iconic space-habitat motif has the space station representing the anthropological observers in the sky, looking down at the primitives below, as in Patricia MCKILLIP's Moon-Flash (1984), where the superstitiously regarded flash of the title turns out to be the firing retro-rockets of spacecraft visiting the station; a particularly good example is Brian W. ALDISS's Helliconia trilogy (1982-5), whose observing space habitat, ironically named "Avernus", is central to the structure of the whole long tale, its "superior" observers standing for a civilization that is played out. The observers in Stanislaw LEM's SOLARIS (1961; trans 1970), filmed as SOLARIS (1971), are also played out and receive the come-uppance due to people who try to hold themselves aloof, their space station becoming a shambles, as the LIVING WORLD beneath reconstructs in the flesh their most feared and desired memories and nightmares. An interesting variant of the space-habitat story is Fritz LEIBER's A Specter is Haunting Texas (1969), whose spectre is, in fact, the skinny body of a visitor from a space habitat who, unable to move properly in Earth gravity, is supported by an exoskeleton.The second boom in space-station stories was, like the first, catalysed by a book of popular science, this time The High Frontier (1977) by Princeton physicist Gerard K. O'NEILL (1927-1992), which vigorously proselytized for the construction of colonies in space, either in Earth orbit or at one of the LAGRANGE POINTS - especially L5, 60deg behind the Moon in the Moon's orbit around Earth. The amazing long-range quality of Tsiolkovsky's prescience has never been more evident than in the fact that his predictions - not just of space stations, but of huge self-sufficient, heavily populated space colonies - took more than half a century to come to their full flowering in scientific speculation and in sf.One of the first writers to take O'Neill's tip was Mack REYNOLDS, in Lagrange Five (1979), The Lagrangists (1983) and Chaos in Lagrangia (1984) (the latter 2 ed Dean ING from manuscripts found after Reynolds's death). Now that the space station was being re-envisioned as the space colony or space habitat - a home where people might live all their lives - its iconic significance was radically changing. The space habitat has become the locus of the new, with everything old, washed-up and politically out-of-date being left rotting back on Earth while the real action is in space. The second new thing about space habitats has to do with diversity and cultural evolution: there can be a lot of them, each giving a home to a different political or racial or social group, so that the habitat takes over the function of ISLANDS in earlier sf as an isolated area that can be used as a laboratory in which to conduct thought experiments in cultural anthropology. (Not all these motifs are post-O'Neill, of course; some - including the idea of diverse habitats each catering for different tastes-were prefigured in Jack VANCE's eccentric "Abercrombie Station" [1952].)Among the many books of the past 15 years to make use of space-habitat themes, mostly along the lines suggested above, are Colony (1978) by Ben BOVA, Joe HALDEMAN's Worlds series, starting with WORLDS (1981), Melinda SNODGRASS's Circuit trilogy, beginning with Circuit (1986), Lois McMaster BUJOLD's FALLING FREE (1988), Christopher HINZ's Paratwa series, starting with Liege-Killer (1987), and Richard LUPOFF's The Forever City (1988). The idea is taken to its extremes in George ZEBROWSKI's Macrolife (1979; rev 1990), in which humanity largely abandons planetary environments in favour of star-travelling habitats.Obviously the iconic significance of the space-habitat story is evolving rapidly, a topic analyzed (rather differently) in "Small Worlds and Strange Tomorrows: The Icon of the Space Station in Science Fiction" by Gary Westfahl in Foundation #51 (Spring 1991) (Westfahl has published pieces elsewhere on the same theme). Complex use of the motif - the space habitat both as cultural forcing ground and as creator of instability through cultural claustrophobia - appears in some key CYBERPUNK works, notably William GIBSON's Neuromancer trilogy (1984-8) and Bruce STERLING's vastly inventive SCHISMATRIX (1985), and also - to a degree - Michael SWANWICK's Vacuum Flowers (1987). In only a decade we have seen the emphasis move from space habitat as brave new world to space habitat as a trap that corrupts and is prey to cultural and technological dereliction.Though space habitats are likely to remain popular in sf because of their peculiar usefulness in creating specific kinds of cultural scenario, in the real world the idea seems, outside a hard core of O'Neill cultists, to be receiving less and less support as something towards which we should currently be working. Although the theoretical advantages of low gravity and permanent energy supply are real, it is difficult to envisage any remotely plausible circumstances that would make the capital cost of space habitats, at least when considered in isolation, redeemable economically, nor any evolutionary advantages in the small-town-mentality balkanization (and shrinkage of the gene pool) that their building and occupation might come to represent. [PN] SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE Film (1983). Delphi Productions/Columbia. Dir Lamont Johnson, starring Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwald, Ernie Hudson, Michael Ironside. Screenplay David Preston, Edith Rey, Dan Goldberg, Len Blum, from a story by Stewart Harding, Jean Lafleur. 90 mins (but reported as being originally 105 mins). Made in 3D. Colour.Bedevilled with production problems, changing directors in midstream (it was begun by Jean Lafleur), suffering from the ominous stigma of 6 screenwriting credits, S:AITFZ is surprisingly relaxed. Strauss is a space scavenger who comes to plague-and-pollution ridden Terra Eleven, the post- HOLOCAUST chic of whose citizens owes much to MAD MAX 2 (1981; vt The Road Warrior), to save three maidens. He is joined by a fast-talking tomboy (Ringwald) and an old army buddy (Hudson), and they fight their way past Bat People, Barracuda Women and feral children to the showdown with CYBORG woman-despoiler Overdog (Ironside) and his barbarian cohorts. Strauss is appealing as a down-at-heel Indiana Jones in space, and, while the movie is derivative and meandering, it is also often ingenious and enjoyable. The overtactfully used 3D becomes an inconsequential irritant. [PN] "SPACE" KINGLEY The tough and resourceful Captain "Space" Kingley was the hero of 3 UK children's SPACE-OPERA annuals of the early 1950s. Beyond his pukka Britishness he displayed few individual characteristics. The sequence (which remains extremely difficult to date precisely; the dates here may not be reliable) comprises The Adventures of Captain "Space" Kingley (coll 1952) with stories by Ray Sonin, The "Space" Kingley Annual (coll 1953) with stories by Ernest A. Player, and "Space" Kingley and the Secret Squadron (coll 1954) with stories by David White. All were heavily illustrated by R.W. Jobson. [JC/RR] SPACE 1999 UK tv series (1975-7). A Gerry Anderson Production for ITC. Created Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Prods Sylvia Anderson (season 1), Fred Freiberger (season 2). Executive prod Gerry Anderson. Story consultant Christopher Penfold. Special effects Brian Johnson. 2 seasons, 48 50min episodes in all. Colour.This UK-made series, created by Gerry and Sylvia ANDERSON - who had previously produced a number of tv series ( STINGRAY, THUNDERBIRDS and others) with puppets and UFO and the film DOPPELGANGER (1969) with real actors - was obviously inspired in part by the success of STAR TREK. The format has a group of people - live actors again - travelling through the Galaxy, visiting various planets and encountering strange lifeforms; but, where the Star Trek characters travelled on a spaceship, the Space 1999 personnel do their interplanetary wandering on Earth's runaway Moon - an unwieldy gimmick that must have caused many frustrations to the writers. Despite good special effects and sometimes imaginative sets the series, with its stereotyped characters and humourless scripts, was remarkably wooden, eliciting predictable jokes about puppets. The other major flaw was a scandalous disregard for basic science ( SCIENTIFIC ERRORS): stars are confused with asteroids, the Moon's progress through space follows no physical laws, and PARSECS are assumed to be a unit of velocity. The series was cancelled in 1977, though 1 episode was delayed until 1978. The regular cast included Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Barry Morse (season 1), Nick Tate, Catherine Schell (season 2), Tony Anholt (season 2), Zienia Merton. Dirs included Ray Austin, Lee H. Katzin, Charles Crichton, David Tomblin, Val Guest, Tom Clegg. Writers included Christopher Penfold, Johnny Byrne, Terence Feely, Donald James and Charles Woodgrove (pseudonym of Freiberger). The series did better in the USA than in the UK, perhaps because of lower expectations, perhaps because of the deliberately international cast.At the end of the 1970s 8 episodes were cobbled together in pairs and recycled by ITC in the guise of 4 movies; the words "Space 1999" nowhere appeared in their titles. Though we have been unable to trace any theatrical release, at least 2 have turned up on tv: Destination Moonbase-Alpha (1978), dir Tom Clegg (based on a 2-episode story, The Bringers of Wonder, by Terence Feely), and Journey through the Black Sun (1982) dir Ray Austin and Lee (based on the episodes Collision Course by Anthony Terpiloff and The Black Sun by David Weir). The other 2 were The Cosmic Princess and Alien Attack.A book about the series is The Making of Space 1999: A Gerry Anderson Production (1976) by Tim Heald. A number of novelizations appeared. Brian N. BALL wrote The Space Guardians * (1975). Michael BUTTERWORTH wrote Planets of Peril * (1977), Mind-Breaks of Space * (1977) with Jeff Jones, The Space-Jackers * (1977), The Psychomorph * (1977), The Time Fighters * (1977) and The Edge of the Infinite * (1977). John Rankine (Douglas R. MASON) wrote Moon Odyssey * (1975), Lunar Attack * (1975), Astral Quest * (1975), Android Planet * (1976) and Phoenix of Megaron * (1976 US). E.C. TUBB wrote Breakaway * (1975), Collision Course * (1975), Alien Seed * (1976 US), Rogue Planet * (1976 US) and Earthfall * (1977). [JB/PN] SPACE OPERA When RADIO was the principal medium of home entertainment in the USA, daytime serials intended for housewives were often sponsored by soap-powder companies; the series were thus dubbed "soap operas". The name was soon generalized to refer to any corny domestic drama. Westerns were sometimes called "horse operas" by false analogy, and the pattern was extended into sf terminology by Wilson TUCKER in 1941, who proposed "space opera" as the appropriate term for the "hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn". It soon came to be applied instead to colourful action-adventure stories of interplanetary or interstellar conflict. Although the term still retains a pejorative implication, it is frequently used with nostalgic affection, applying to space-adventure stories which have a calculatedly romantic element. The term might be applied retrospectively to such early space adventures as Robert W. COLE's The Struggle for Empire (1900) but, as it was coined as a complaint about pulp CLICHE, it seems reasonable to limit its use to GENRE SF.Five writers were principally involved in the development of space opera in the 1920s and 1930s. E.E. "Doc" SMITH made his debut with the exuberant interstellar adventure The Skylark of Space (1928; 1946), and continued to write stories in a similar vein until the mid-1960s; 2 sequels, Skylark Three (1930; 1948) and Skylark of Valeron (1934-5; 1949), escalated the scale of the action before the Lensmen series took over, the SPACESHIPS growing ever-larger and the WEAPONS more destructive until GALACTIC EMPIRES were toppling like card-houses in Children of the Lens (1947-8; 1954). Once there was no greater scale of action to be employed, Smith had little more to offer, and his last novels - The Galaxy Primes (1959; 1965) and Skylark DuQuesne (1966) - are mere exercises in recapitulation. In the 1970s, however, a reissue of the Lensmen series enjoyed such success with readers that Smith's banner was picked up by William B. Ellern (1933- ), David A. KYLE and Stephen GOLDIN ( E.E. SMITH for details). Contemporary with Smith's first interstellar epic was a series of stories written by Edmond HAMILTON for WEIRD TALES, ultimately collected in Crashing Suns (1928-9; coll 1965) and Outside the Universe (1929; 1964). Although he was a more versatile writer than Smith, Hamilton took great delight in wrecking worlds and destroying suns, and his name was made with space opera (he too continued to write it until the 1960s), other early examples being "The Universe Wreckers" (1930) and the CAPTAIN FUTURE series. In the late 1940s Hamilton wrote The Star of Life (1947; 1959) and the memorable The Star Kings (1949; vt Beyond the Moon), an sf version of The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) by Anthony Hope (1863-1933). The last of Hamilton's works in this vein were Doomstar (1966) and the Starwolf trilogy (1967-8). Even before Smith and Hamilton made their debuts, Ray CUMMINGS was writing interplanetary novels for the general-fiction pulps and for Hugo GERNSBACK's SCIENCE AND INVENTION. His principal space operas were Tarrano the Conqueror (1925; 1930), A Brand New World (1928; 1964), Brigands of the Moon (1931) and its sequel Wandl the Invader (1932; 1961), but his reputation was made by his microcosmic romances ( GREAT AND SMALL), and it was to such adventures that he reverted when he turned to self-plagiarism in later years. The two most important writers who carried space opera forward in the wake of Smith and Hamilton were John W. CAMPBELL Jr and Jack WILLIAMSON. Campbell made his first impact with the novelettes collected in The Black Star Passes (1930; fixup 1953), and he went on to write Galaxy-spanning adventures like Islands of Space (1931; 1957), Invaders from the Infinite (1932; 1961) and The Mightiest Machine (1934; 1947). Campbell had a better command of scientific jargon than his contemporaries, and a slicker line in superscientific wizardry, but he began writing a different kind of sf as Don A. Stuart and subsequently abandoned writing altogether when it clashed with his duties as editor of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION. Williamson flavoured space opera with a more ancient brand of romanticism, basing characters in The Legion of Space (1934; rev 1947) on the Three Musketeers and Falstaff; although he soon moved on to more sophisticated varieties of exotic adventure, he never quite abandoned space opera: Bright New Universe (1967) and Lifeburst (1984) carry forward the tradition, and his collaborations with Frederik POHL, such as The Singers of Time (1991), retain a deliberate but deft romanticism which places them among the best modern examples of the species. Another notable space opera from the 1930s is Clifford D. SIMAK's Cosmic Engineers (1939; rev 1950).During the 1940s some of the naive charm of space opera was lost as standards of writing rose and plots became somewhat more complicated, and the trend was towards a more vivid and lush romanticism. Notable examples are Judgement Night (1943; title story of coll 1952; separate publication 1965) by C.L. MOORE and several works by A.E. VAN VOGT, including The Mixed Men (1943-5; fixup 1952; cut vt Mission to the Stars) and Earth's Last Fortress (1942 as "Recruiting Station"; vt as title story of Masters of Time coll 1950; 1960 dos). By this time the GALACTIC-EMPIRE scenario was being used for other purposes, most effectively by Isaac ASIMOV in the Foundation series (1942-50; fixups 1951-3); by the 1950s it had become a standardized framework available for use in entirely serious sf. Once this happened, the impression of vast scale so important to space opera was no longer the sole prerogative of straightforward adventure stories, and the day of the "classical" space opera was done. But Asimov, like many others, retained a deep affection for old-fashioned romanticism, deploying it conscientiously in The Stars Like Dust (1951). Many of the more "realistic" space adventures of the 1950s incorporate space-operatic flourishes, including James BLISH's Earthman Come Home (1950-53; fixup 1955), which features space battles between star-travelling cities - although the other novels in the Okie series have rather different priorities. The old-style space opera seemed rather juvenile by this time, but it remained an important component of the fiction published by the more downmarket pulps while they were still being published, especially PLANET STORIES and THRILLING WONDER STORIES. New life could still be breathed into it by the better writers associated with those magazines; prominent were Leigh BRACKETT, as in The Starmen (1952), and Jack VANCE, as in The Space Pirate (1953; cut vt The Five Gold Bands). There were DIGEST magazines which specialized in exotic adventure stories, including space operas - notably IMAGINATION and the 2nd of the 2 US magazines entitled SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES (which survived as a UK magazine for some years after its death in the USA) - but they did not long outlast the pulps. When it was abandoned by the magazines, space opera found a new home in the ACE BOOKS Doubles ed Donald A. WOLLHEIM (see also DOS). Robert SILVERBERG published a good deal of colourful material in this format, including the trilogy assembled as Lest We Forget Thee, Earth (fixup 1958) as by Calvin M. Knox, while Kenneth BULMER, John BRUNNER and E.C. TUBB became UK recruits to this largely US tradition, the last-named labouring to preserve it with his long-running Dumarest series. Space-operatic romanticism is still widely evident, usually cleverly combined with other elements. Examples include Gordon R. DICKSON's long-running Dorsai series, Poul ANDERSON's Ensign Flandry series, H. Beam PIPER's Space Viking (1963), Michael MOORCOCK's The Sundered Worlds (fixup 1965; vt The Blood Red Game), Ian WALLACE's Croyd (1967) and Dr Orpheus (1968), Samuel R. DELANY's NOVA (1968), Alan Dean FOSTER's The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972) and its sequels, Barrington J. BAYLEY's Star Winds (1978), Philip Jose FARMER's The Unreasoning Mask (1981), S.P. SOMTOW's Light on the Sound (1982) and its sequels, F.M. BUSBY's Star Rebel (1984) and its sequels, Ben BOVA's Privateers (1985), Michael D. RESNICK's Santiago (1986), Iain M. BANKS's Consider Phlebas (1987) and other Culture novels, Colin GREENLAND's TAKE BACK PLENTY (1990) and Stephen R. DONALDSON's Gap series, begun with The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story (1990), which transfigures Wagner's Ring Cycle of real operas. It seems in no danger of losing its popularity, given the recent winning of Hugo awards by space operas like C.J. CHERRYH's DOWNBELOW STATION (1981), David BRIN's STARTIDE RISING (1983) and Lois McMaster BUJOLD's THE VOR GAME (1990). The crudities of the subgenre are easily parodied by such comedies as Harry HARRISON's Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965) and Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers (1973), M. John HARRISON's The Centauri Device (1974) and Douglas ADAMS's Hitch-Hiker books, but the affection in which it is held defies total deflation - as evidenced by the much more recent Bill, the Galactic Hero series of SHARED-WORLD adventures. The tv series STAR TREK has given rise to a long-running series of spinoff novels, many of which are more space operatic than the studio budget ever permitted the tv scripts to be. An excellent theme anthology is Space Opera (anth 1974) ed Brian W. ALDISS; his Galactic Empires (anth 2 vols 1976) is also relevant. [BS]See also: FANTASTIC VOYAGES; SPACE FLIGHT. SPACE PATROL 1. US tv serial (1950-55). ABC TV. Prod Mike Moser (1950-52), Helen Moser (1953-5), dir Dik Darley, starring Ed Kemmer, Lyn Osborn, Ken Mayer, Virginia Hewitt, Nina Bara. Written Norman Jolley. 210 25min episodes. B/w.One of the many SPACE-OPERA serials on TELEVISION after CAPTAIN VIDEO, and possibly the first to feature FASTER-THAN-LIGHT travel to the stars, SP began as a 5-times-a-week 15min programme on local tv; soon after, it went on RADIO and network tv. The patrol leader was Commander Buzz Corry. Viewers were invited to "become space cadets of the SP" (join the fan club) and to buy special SP cosmic smoke guns, etc. Like most such programmes of the time SP was transmitted live, and with some ad-libbing. Special effects were minimal, but a mild attempt was made to keep the stories scientifically plausible.2. UK tv series (1963-4). National Interest Picture Production/Wonderama Productions. Created/written Roberta Leigh, prod Leigh and Arthur Provis, dir Frank Goulding. 2 seasons, 39 25-min episodes in all. This was a SPACE-OPERA series for children produced with animated puppets, not unlike the various SuperMarionation series made by Gerry ANDERSON, and indeed created by one of Anderson's former colleagues. Main characters were Captain Larry Dart, Slim the Venusian and Husky the Martian in the spacecraft Galasphere 347; also important were Haggerty the genius inventor and Gabblerdictum the Martian parrot. [PN] SPACE PRECINCT Tv series (1994- ). A Mentorn Films and Gerry Anderson Production.Directors include JohnGlen, Sidney Havers and Alan Birkinshaw. First episode written by Paul Mayhew-Archer. StarringTed Shackleford, Rob Youngblood, Simone Bendix. Current.First episode Oct 1994, 24 one-hourepisodes announced.This syndicated series is apparently based on a singleton drama some years back entitled Space Police, but the title was changed so as not to infringe the title copyright heldby a toy company. It took a long time for the series to get off the ground. This is a Gerry ANDERSON production, but unlike most of his tv shows is live action, not puppets (though criticshave complained about the inexpressive rubber masks worn by the aliens). Anderson hasdescribed the series as a New York cop show transplanted to outer space. It is actually set in anunspecified future in Demeter City, a galactic crossroads where two immigrant alien racescomprise most of the population, an "inter-galactic melting pot, attracting a bad element as well as the good", according to the show's publicists. Two New York cops (Shackleford and Youngblood) are sent to help out; Bendix is the beautiful and brilliant cop from the local force. Some cops are aliens. Opinions differ about whether the show is deliberately or accidentally humorous. Some think it is tongue-in-cheek.Either way, the production values are questionable. [GF/PN] SPACE PUBLICATIONS SPACE SCIENCE FICTION. SPACE RAIDERS BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS; Roger CORMAN. SPACE SCIENCE FICTION US DIGEST-size magazine. 8 issues May 1952-Sep 1953, published by Space Publications; ed Lester DEL REY. The most prolific contributor was del Rey himself, sometimes as Erik van Lhin or Philip St John. Notable stories included T.L. SHERRED's "Cue For Quiet" (May-July 1953) and Philip K. DICK's "Second Variety" (May 1953) and "The Variable Man" (Sep 1953). #8 began serialization of Poul ANDERSON's Brain Wave (as "The Escape"; 1954), but it was not completed. All 8 issues were reprinted in the UK 1952-3, numbered but undated, published by the Archer Press, London. [BS] SPACE SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE US DIGEST-size magazine. 2 issues, Spring and Aug 1957, published by the Republic Features Syndicate; ed Lyle Kenyon ENGEL, with much editorial work, uncredited, by Michael AVALLONE. The best story may have been John JAKES's "The Devil Spins a Sun-Dream" (Spring 1957). [BS/PN] SPACESHIPS The suggestion that people might one day travel to the MOON inside a flying machine was first put forward seriously by John WILKINS in 1638. There had been cosmic voyages prior to that date, and there were to be many more thereafter ( FANTASTIC VOYAGES; SPACE FLIGHT), but few took the mechanics of the journey seriously enough to invest much imaginative effort in the design of credible vehicles. Edgar Allan POE's "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835) has an afterword complaining about the failure of other writers to achieve verisimilitude, but Pfaall makes his journey by BALLOON, and Poe's assumption of the continuity of the atmosphere - a full 2 centuries after Torricelli had concluded that the Earth's atmosphere could extend upwards for only a few miles - is hardly scientific.Jules VERNE's travellers in De la terre a la lune (1865; trans J.K. Hoyte as From the Earth to the Moon 1869 US) and its sequel, Autour de la lune (1870, both trans as From the Earth to the Moon 1873 UK) use a projectile fired from a gun rather than a vessel, and most of those who followed in his footsteps treated their vessels as facilitating devices, inventing various jargon terms to signify mysterious forces of propulsion. Percy GREG's spaceship in Across the Zodiac (1880) is powered by "apergy"; H.G. WELLS invented the antigravitic "Cavorite" for THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1901); John MASTIN's "airship" is borne into space by a "new gas" in The Stolen Planet (1905); and Garrett P. SERVISS's A Columbus of Space (1909; rev 1911) employed an atomic powered "space-car". Because their means of propulsion were so often mysterious, spaceships in this period could easily assume the "perfect" spheroid shape of the heavenly bodies themselves; a notable example is in Robert CROMIE's A Plunge into Space (1890). When not round or bullet-shaped they tended to resemble flying submarines.Spaceships were taken up in a big way by the early sf PULP MAGAZINES, and their visual image was dramatically changed. Frank R. PAUL and other contemporary illustrators ( ILLUSTRATION) showed a strong preference for bulbous machines like enormously bloated aeroplanes or rounded-off oceangoing liners with long rows of portholes. These were often shown with jets of flame or vapour gushing out behind, but this was as much to suggest speed as to indicate that the means of propulsion involved might be one or more ROCKETS; similarly, the slow process whereby hulls became streamlined and elegant fins appeared corresponded less to any realization of the importance of rocket-power than to the development of sleeker automobiles in the real world. Two of the more convincing early pulp-sf spaceships are featured in Otto Willi GAIL's The Shot into Infinity (1925; trans 1929; 1975) and Laurence MANNING's "The Voyage of the Asteroid" (1932), but such stories were overshadowed by extravagant SPACE OPERAS which thrived on fantastic machines with limitless capabilities, fighting interstellar WARS with all manner of exotic WEAPONS - the ultimate fulfilment of childhood fantasies. Classic examples include the various Skylarks employed by E.E. "Doc" SMITH's Richard Seaton and friends. Many pulp-sf writers still regarded spaceships as mere facilitating devices - Edgar Rice BURROUGHS was prepared to do without them in many of his interplanetary romances - but the pioneers of space opera exploited the fantasies of unlimited opportunity and luxurious seclusion which had hitherto been attached to such Earthly vessels as Captain Nemo's Nautilus, the Crystal Boat in Gordon STABLES's The Cruise of the Crystal Boat (1891) and the Golden Ship used in Max PEMBERTON's The Iron Pirate (1897). Outside the pulps, the hero of Friedrich W. MADER's Distant Worlds (1921; trans 1932) declared that his spacefaring vessel was no mere "airship" but a world-ship with the freedom of the Universe.By the 1930s writers of HARD SF had become convinced that the first real spaceships would be rockets, and stories about the large-scale projects required to build them were being written as early as Lester DEL REY's "The Stars Look Down" (1940); other notable examples include Arthur C. CLARKE's Prelude to Space (1951) and Gordon R. DICKSON's The Far Call (1973; exp 1978). But dominance was always retained by naive fantasies in which spaceships could be casually built in anyone's back yard, or in which their familiarity was simply taken for granted. Realistic stories of the building and launching of spaceships can still be written - Manna (1984) by Lee Correy (G. Harry STINE) is noteworthy - but we have now become so blase about the spectacle of Saturn rockets blasting off from Cape Canaveral and space shuttles gliding down to land at Edwards Air Force Base that modern sf rarely bothers with matters of construction or with maiden voyages. Tense NEAR-FUTURE melodramas involving moderately advanced hardware can still be very suspenseful - The Descent of Anansi (1982) by Larry NIVEN and Steven BARNES is a good example - but the vast majority of sf stories look towards further horizons.A different kind of realism was introduced into spaceship stories by Robert A. HEINLEIN in "Universe" (1941), which scorned the convenience of FASTER-THAN-LIGHT travel and established the archetypal image of the GENERATION STARSHIP. This notion - an ironic embodiment of the motto per ardua ad astra - quickly took over the sf version of the myth of the Ark, earlier displayed in such novels as When Worlds Collide (1933) by Philip WYLIE and Edwin BALMER. Notable later examples include Leigh BRACKETT's Alpha Centauri - or Die! (1953 as "The Ark of Mars"; exp 1963) and Roger DIXON's Noah II (1970). The spaceship became a powerful symbol of permanent escape, invoked continually throughout the 1950s in stories of future tyranny and the struggles of oppressed minorities. The myth of escape is taken to its extreme in Poul ANDERSON's time-dilatation fantasy Tau Zero (1967; exp 1970), the first of several stories in which the spaceship provides its human crew with a means to escape the end of the Universe. Such escape motifs are, however, opposed in stories of space disaster; two interesting stories which recast the voyage of the Titanic (1912) as sf are "The Star Lord" (1953) by Boyd Ellanby (William Boyd [1903-1983]) and "The Corianis Disaster" (1960) by Murray LEINSTER. Other stories developed the notion of far-travelling starships into the idea of a starship culture. Notable examples are Heinlein's CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY (1957) and Alexei PANSHIN's RITE OF PASSAGE (1963; exp 1968). Relativistic effects were built into the idea of a starship culture in L. Ron HUBBARD's Return to Tomorrow (1950; 1954), in which spacefarers become alienated from the course of history by the time-dilatation effect of travelling at near-lightspeed.The UFO crazes of the post-WWII years made some impact on sf imagery in the magazines. Disc-shaped spaceships became more common in ILLUSTRATIONS, and the interest of editors Sam MERWIN Jr - who also wrote about flying saucers in "Centaurus" (1953)-and Raymond A. PALMER was reflected in the magazines of which they had charge. Ufology had far more influence on the imagery of sf CINEMA, where saucer-shaped ships became commonplace. The sleekly streamlined ships which still dominated magazine illustration continued to hold their ground until the 1970s; when their imagery was finally challenged, it was by the bizarre and surreal hardware of artists like Eddie JONES and Christopher FOSS. This movement towards a more complicated topography - licensed by the knowledge that starships built in space for journeys in hard vacuum had no need of streamlining - had been foreshadowed in fiction since the 1950s. Among the more romantic spaceships featured in the later years of magazine sf are those in Cordwainer SMITH's Instrumentality stories, which include the light-powered "sailing ships" in "The Lady who Sailed the Soul" (1960) and "Think Blue, Count Two" (1963) ( SOLAR WIND). The tree-grown starships of Jack WILLIAMSON's Dragon's Island (1951; vt The Not-Men) and the animal-drawn starships of Robert Franson's The Shadow of the Ship (1983) are among the most curious in sf.The men who sail or fly in them often refer to ships and aircraft as "she", crediting them with personalities and giving them names. Much sf transplants this tendency in perfectly straightforward terms, but other stories carry it to its logical and literal extreme. Human brains are frequently transplanted into spaceship bodies to become functional CYBORGS, as in Thomas N. SCORTIA's "Sea Change" (1956; vt "The Shores of Night"), Anne MCCAFFREY's The Ship who Sang (coll of linked stories 1969), Cordwainer Smith's "Three to a Given Star" (1965) and Kevin O'DONNELL Jr's Mayflies (1979). Other spaceships acquire intelligence and personality in their own right thanks to their sophisticated COMPUTER networks; the one in Frank HERBERT's Destination: Void (1966) has delusions of godlike grandeur, and the one in Clifford D. SIMAK's Shakespeare's Planet (1976) has a multiply split personality. More often, though, the relationship between humans and spaceships maintains a traditional naval rigour, as in many novels by the Merchant Navy writer A. Bertram CHANDLER, Starman Jones (1953) by ex-US Navy officer Robert Heinlein and THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE (1974) by Larry Niven and Jerry E. POURNELLE.Sf stories whose subject matter is the spaceship MYTHOLOGY built up by their predecessors include Stanislaw LEM's Niezwyciezony (1964; trans as The Invincible 1973) and Mark GESTON's Lords of the Starship (1967). The idea that the spaceship owes much of its charisma to phallic symbolism has been much bandied about - as reflected in Virgil FINLAY's cover for the Oct 1963 issue of WORLDS OF TOMORROW, Kurt VONNEGUT Jr's "The Big Space Fuck" (1972) and Norman SPINRAD's The Void Captain's Tale (1983) - but a more convincing analogy would liken spaceships to the "sperms" of sea-dwelling creatures which require no intromission (and hence no phallus) but are simply released into an oceanic wilderness to seek out the object of their fertilizing mission. This is the metaphor contained in such novels as Jack Williamson's Manseed (fixup 1982). The spaceship is still commonly deployed as a straightforward facilitating device - a means to send ordinary near-contemporary characters into exotic and fabulous situations - but even in this role it can become as charismatic as STAR TREK's Starship Enterprise. The terminal decline in the plausibility of the home-made spaceship in the face of the magnitude and complexity of the actual space programme has to some extent been compensated for by the remarkable frequency with which sf characters serendipitously discover ALIEN spaceships; a notable example is Frederik POHL's GATEWAY (1977) and its sequels. Alien starships are sometimes invested with even more mystique than those constructed by humans; notable examples include those whose one-time arrival on Earth is revealed in Ivan YEFREMOV's "Stellar Ships" (trans 1954) and the gargantuan vessel featured in Arthur C. Clarke's RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA (1973). Awesome alien spaceships provide stirring climaxes for such films as CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) and The ABYSS (1989), but they can also perform a much more sinister role, as in Stephen KING's novel The Tommyknockers (1988).The power of the sf mythology of the spaceship was made evident by the decision to bow to public pressure and name one of the experimental space shuttles, constructed in 1977, the Enterprise.[BS] SPACESHIP TO THE UNKNOWN FLASH GORDON. SPACE STORIES US PULP magazine. 5 bimonthly issues Oct 1952-June 1953, published by Standard Magazines as a companion to STARTLING STORIES et al.; ed Samuel MINES. Its policy, identical to that of Startling Stories, was to feature a complete novel in every issue; the most notable was The Big Jump (Feb 1953; 1955) by Leigh BRACKETT. [BS] SPACE TRAVEL GENERATION STARSHIPS; ROCKETS; SPACE FLIGHT; SPACESHIPS; TRANSPORTATION. SPACE TRAVEL Magazine. IMAGINATIVE TALES. SPACE WARP In sf TERMINOLOGY, a concept similar to that of hyperspace and subspace. The term (along with "hyperspace") may first have been used by John W. CAMPBELL Jr in Islands of Space (1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly; 1957). If a handkerchief is folded, two otherwise separated points of it can become adjacent; if space - more accurately, spacetime - could be warped in like style (which it cannot), the resulting short cut would effectively enable SPACESHIPS to travel FASTER THAN LIGHT: the topic is discussed further in HYPERSPACE. Space warp has become such a CLICHE in sf that it allows endless variants. One of the best known is the "warp factor" used in STAR TREK as a measure of velocity. This is illogical on all levels.The idea of ANTIGRAVITY is also connected with the warping of space: since GRAVITY (or a gravitational field) is an effect dependent on the curving (or warping) of spacetime in the presence of mass, then antigravity could be envisaged as what would happen if you contrived to warp space the other way, an idea proposed by Charles Eric MAINE in Count-Down (1959; vt Fire Past the Future 1959 US). This is actually a development of that same idea proposed by Campbell in Islands in Space; Campbell correctly recognized that to warp spacetime would not only alter gravitational fields but be equivalent to altering the velocity of light. Maine's negative space curvature is anyway impossible, since it would require the existence of negative mass, an existence prohibited on several theoretical grounds. [PN] SPACEWAY US DIGEST-size magazine, 8 issues Dec 1953-June 1955, 12 issues in all, published by William L. CRAWFORD's FPCI in Los Angeles; the subtitle "Stories of the Future" was changed to "Science Fiction" Dec 1954. The title was taken from the UK film SPACEWAYS (1953). When S died it had published only the first part of Ralph Milne FARLEY's "Radio Minds of Mars"; on its resurrection by the same publisher many years later to publish 4 more issues, Jan 1969-June 1970, it printed the serial in full. This new version of S reprinted material from the first, but added a few new stories. The most notable story carried by the magazine was "The Cosmic Geoids" by John TAINE (Dec 1954-Apr 1955), though this had already been published in book form, by the same publisher, as the lead novel of The Cosmic Geoids, and One Other (coll 1949). An unfinished serial in the 2nd version of S was Andre NORTON's "Garan of Yu-Lac", which Crawford had been holding since 1935; he later published it in book form as Garan the Eternal (1972). #1-#4 were reprinted in the UK 1954-5 by Regular Publications. [BS/PN] SPACEWAYS Film (1953). Hammer/Exclusive. Dir Terence Fisher, starring Howard Duff, Eva Bartok, Alan Wheatley, Andrew Osborn. Screenplay Paul TABORI, Richard Landau, based on a 1952 radio play by Charles Eric MAINE. 76 mins. B/w.In this first UK space movie since THINGS TO COME (1936) a scientist falsely suspected of murdering his wife and placing her body in a satellite takes a space trip to establish his innocence. This is an early, low-budget Hammer melodrama of indifferent quality. Maine's novel Spaceways: A Story of the Very Near Future (1953; vt Spaceways Satellite 1958 US), also based on the radio play, appeared the same year as the film. [JB/PN] SPACE-WISE UK BEDSHEET-size magazine. 3 issues, Dec 1969, Jan and Mar 1970, published by the Martec Publishing Group; ed Derek R. Threadgall. SW contained a mixture of sf and science and occult articles which proved not viable. [FHP] SPAIN Modern sf appeared in Spain during the 1950s with the publishing imprint Minotauro and the magazine Mas Alla (1953-7), both from Argentina ( LATIN AMERICA). Spanish sf editions began in 1953, with pulp novelettes in the Futuro and Luchadores del Espacio series, followed by Nebulae, the first specialized Spanish imprint for sf books. During 1955-90 about 1300 sf books were published in Spain, mostly translations from English, with only about 50 by Spanish authors.Before the Civil War, Coronel Ignotus (the pseudonym of Jose de Elola), Frederic Pujula, Elias Cerda and Domingo Ventallo were the most important authors of old-fashioned speculations and fantasies, mainly satirical and sometimes political. Ignotus was published in one of the earliest quasi-sf MAGAZINES in the world, earlier than any in the USA or UK: Biblioteca Novelesco-Cientifica (1921-3), each of whose 10 issues containing a single novel by Ignotus, 3 featuring interplanetary voyages. In the 1950s George H. White (pseudonym of Pascual Enguidanos) wrote a series of 32 sf adventure novelettes known collectively as the Saga de los Aznar ["Aznar Saga"] series (1953-8). More interesting are subsequent stories in the 1950s and 1960s by Antonio Ribera, Francisco Valverde, Juan G. Atienza, Domingo Santos, Carlos Buiza and Luis Vigil (1940- ); it was with these that modern Spanish sf really began.The 1960s saw the first boom in sf publishing in Spain. After the short life of the magazine Anticipacion (1966-7), the most influential of all Spanish sf magazines began: Nueva Dimension, founded in 1968, ed Sebastian Martinez (1937- ), Domingo Santos and Luis Vigil; it was voted the best European sf magazine at the 1972 Eurocon in Trieste. A real milestone in Spanish sf, ND published local authors alongside the best sf from other countries. It lasted 148 issues, until Dec 1983.Incursions into sf have also been made by writers who normally work outside the genre, such as Tomas Salvador (1921- ), whose La nave ["The Ship"] (1959) is a reworking of the popular GENERATION-STARSHIP theme, and Manuel de Pedrolo (1918-1990), who had a big success with his novel written in Catalan, Mecanoscrit del segon origen ["Mechanuscript of the Second Origin"] (1974), about life after a world HOLOCAUST.Domingo Santos - the pseudonym of Pedro Domingo Mutino (1941- ) - is the major contemporary Spanish sf writer. Some of his stories and novels have been translated into several foreign languages. His best known novel is Gabriel, historia de un robot ["Gabriel, The Story of a Robot"] (1963), about the personality and coming of age of a ROBOT not subject to the "fundamental laws" that compel other robots to obedience. Another interesting novel is Burbuja ["Bubble"] (1965), but the best of Santos is found in his short fiction. Meteoritos ["Meteorites"] (coll 1965) is a classic collection, but more demanding are the stories in Futuro imperfecto ["Future Imperfect"] (coll 1981) and No lejos de la Tierra ["Not Far from Earth"] (coll 1986), set in the NEAR FUTURE and often concerned with ECOLOGY and the threats that endanger the quality of our lives.In the 1970s Gabriel Bermudez Castillo (1934- ) appeared with well written books such as Viaje a un planeta Wu-Wei ["Travel to a Wu-Wei Planet"] (1976) and action-adventure novels like El senor de la rueda ["The Lord of the Wheel"] (1978). Carlos Saiz Cidoncha (1939- ) has specialized in SPACE OPERA, and in 1976 also privately published the first history of Spanish sf; this was the embryo of his 1988 PhD thesis, the first in Spain on such a topic.The political changes following Franco's death in 1975 appear to have had no effect on sf publishing. Sf in Spain has always had a restricted market, perhaps too small to bother with. Its only political censorship under Franco may have been the prohibition in 1970 of Nueva Dimension #14, which contained a story by an Argentinian that appeared to advocate Basque separatism.A second boom in sf publishing took place in the 1980s, and more new authors appeared, the most gifted perhaps being Elia Barcelo (1957- ). Her novelette "La Dama Dragon" ["The Dragon Lady"] (1982) has been translated into several foreign languages and is collected in Sagrada (coll 1990), the title being the feminine form of the word for "sacred". The first Spanish woman to publish an sf book, Barcelo is a very good stylist in a country where the usual style of sf writing precludes it from consideration by more demanding literary critics. Her stories are concerned with women's role in society and with the contrast between technological and primitive cultures. Other new authors are Rafael Marin Trechera (1959- ) with Lagrimas de Luz ["Tears of Light"] (1982), an interstellar epic, and the collaboration of Javier Redal (1952- ) and Juan Miguel Aguilera (1960- ) in a modern HARD-SF space opera, Mundos en al abismo ["Worlds in the Abyss"] (1988), an unusually science-conscious book for Spain. A SPANNER, E(DWARD) F(RANK) (1888-? ) UK writer and naval architect, author of 3 future- WAR novels - The Broken Trident (1926), The Naviators (1926) and The Harbour of Death (1927) - in all of which the UK is warned to beware remaining unduly dependent upon her navy; the dire consequences of so doing are dramatized in imaginary conflicts with-presciently - both Germany and Japan. [JC] SPARKROCK, FRED Robert E. VARDEMAN. SPARTACUS, DEUTERO R.L. FANTHORPE. SPEARS, HEATHER (1934- ) Canadian writer, poet and artist now resident in Denmark, author of much non-genrepoetry, for which she won the Governor-General's Medal for Poetry, her first volume beingAsylum Poems (coll 1958). Her sf, which ismuch more recent, includes Moonfall (1991)which, with its sequel, The Child of Atwar(1993), vividly explores post- HOLOCAUSTterritory. [JC] SPECIAL BULLETIN Made-for-tv film (1983). NBC. Dir Edward Zwick, starring Christopher Allport, David Clennon, Ed Flanders, Kathryn Walker, David Rasche. Screenplay Marshall Herskovitz. 92 mins. Colour.An unnervingly effective pseudodocumentary, this presents itself as tv coverage of an escalating terrorist crisis in Charleston, where a dissident group of nuclear scientists and peace activists threatens to set off an atomic bomb in the dockyard unless all the nuclear weapons in the region are turned over to them for dumping. With cutaways to White House spokesmen lying, conflicting reports from political correspondents, interviews with experts, on-the-spot reports, ranting demands from the terrorists and hastily assembled background profiles on the offenders, SB is a fine recreation of a now-familiar style of tv coverage, and in a surprisingly rigorous manner examines the MEDIA influencing the atrocities they purport to cover. The glimpses at the end of the detonation of the bomb - a defusing attempt is bungled - are perhaps more effective than the special-effects holocausts of The DAY AFTER (1983) and THREADS (1984), and the final moments, in which other news issues creep into the schedule, are understated but cutting. [KN] SPECULATION UK FANZINE ed Peter WESTON from Birmingham 1963-73. Averaging 60pp, S was for many years consistently the UK's best amateur magazine of comment and criticism. Regular contributors included James BLISH, Kenneth BULMER, M. John HARRISON, Michael MOORCOCK and Frederik POHL. Several fans whose writing often appeared in S later became sf writers, Christopher PRIEST and Brian M. STABLEFORD among them. The final issue, #33, though printed 1973, was not distributed until 1976. [PN] SPECULATIVE FICTION Term used by some writers and critics in place of "science fiction". In the symposium published as Of Other Worlds (coll 1947) ed Lloyd Arthur ESHBACH, Robert A. HEINLEIN proposed the term to describe a subset of sf involving extrapolation from known science and technology "to produce a new situation, a new framework for human action". Judith MERRIL borrowed the term in 1966, spelling out her version of "speculative fiction" in rather more detail ( DEFINITIONS OF SF) in such a way as to de-emphasize the science component of sf (which acronym can equally stand for "speculative fiction") while keeping the idea of extrapolation - i.e., Merril's use of the term was useful for that kind of sociological sf which concentrates on social change without necessarily any great emphasis on science or TECHNOLOGY. Since then the term has generally appealed to writers and readers who are as interested in SOFT SF as in HARD SF. Though the term has proved attractive to many, especially perhaps academics who find the term more respectable-sounding than "science fiction" and lacking the pulp associations, nobody's definition of "speculative fiction" has as yet any formal rigour, though the term has come to be used with a very wide application (as by Samuel R. DELANY in his ORIGINAL-ANTHOLOGY series QUARK), as if science fiction were a subset of speculative fiction rather than vice versa. Because the term "speculative fiction", as now most often used, does not clearly define any generic boundary, it has come to include not only soft and hard sf but also FANTASY as a whole. Many critics do not find it a consistently helpful term but, as Gary K. WOLFE points out in Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy (1986), critics tend to worry more about the demarcation of genres than writers do, and, as a propaganda weapon, the term has been useful precisely because it allows the blurring of boundaries, which in turn permits a greater auctorial freedom from genre constraints and "rules". [PN] SPENCE, CATHERINE HELEN (1825-1910) Scottish-born Australian novelist whose Handfasted (written c1879; 1984), a UTOPIA with LOST-WORLD elements set in the hidden state of Columba somewhere in Southern California, was unpublished at the time because of its FEMINIST views on women's autonomy; the title refers to a traditional form of trial marriage, and in Columba single mothers are not treated as pariahs. Less impressively, A Week in the Future (1888-9 Centennial Magazine; 1987) takes its heroine by SUSPENDED ANIMATION to the socialist utopia that London has become in 1988. The first book is a fully dramatised novel of real quality, but the second, only novella length, more resembles a tract. In her later years, CHS fought for women's suffrage. [JC/PN]See also: AUSTRALIA. SPENCER, JOHN (BARRY) (1944- ) UK writer, rock musician and one-time art-agency director, founding what would become Young Artists, a major UK agency for preponderantly sf/fantasy artists. His first sf novel, The Electronic Lullaby Meat Market (1975), in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Mick FARREN sets a quirky thriller in a violently hyperbolic NEAR-FUTURE world described in sex-charged terms reminiscent of the late-1960s counterculture. After editing Echoes of Terror (anth 1980 chap) with Mike Jarvis, JS returned to sf with A Case for Charley (1985) and Charley Gets the Picture (1986), two idiosyncratic murder mysteries set after the HOLOCAUST, when Nevada and Arizona have been destroyed by earthquakes and California has been rebuilt as a vast tourist centre. He is not to be confused with the John Spencer (1946- ) who illustrated a number of fantasy/folklore juveniles in the early 1970s, nor with the publisher John Spencer ( BADGER BOOKS). [JC/JGr]See also: MUSIC. SPENCER, LEONARD G. ZIFF-DAVIS house name used once by Robert SILVERBERG and Randall GARRETT in collaboration on "The Beast With 7 Tails" (AMZ 1956), and twice by unknown writers, 1956-7. [PN] SPIDER, THE US PULP MAGAZINE. 118 issues Oct 1933-Dec 1943; monthly until Feb 1943, bimonthly thereafter. Published by Popular Publications; ed Rogers Terrill until near the end. TS, one of the hero/villain pulps, began as a straightforward imitation of the highly successful The Shadow, telling of a mysterious caped avenger. The first 2 novels were by R.T.M. Scott; the remainder, credited to the house name Grant STOCKBRIDGE, were mainly by Norvell W. PAGE with others by Emile Tepperman, Wayne Rogers and Prentice Winchell (1915-? ). Under Page's guidance, the Spider became a more ruthless character who stamped a spider sign on the foreheads of the villains he killed, and the menaces he combated became more fantastic, including a metal-eating virus and Neanderthal hordes (the 2 novels concerned were reprinted as The City Destroyer [1935; 1975] and Hordes of the Red Butcher [1935; 1975]). TS also contained short stories, including the non-sf Doc Turner series by Arthur Leo ZAGAT. The character later featured in a cinema serial, The Spider's Web (1938; 15 episodes, Columbia, starring Robert E. Kent). Since 1969 further novels have been reprinted in book form ( Norvell W. PAGE for details). A final Spider title, left unpublished when the magazine folded, was reworked with new characters as Blue Steel (1979) as by Spider Page. [MJE/FHP/PN] SPIELBERG, STEVEN (1947- ) US film-maker. Born in Cincinnati, raised in Arizona and an amateur film-maker in his early teens, SS completed his first sf feature - the 140min Firelight (1963) - at the age of 16; he studied English rather than film at college in California. His first professional film was Amblin' (1969), a slick short about hitch-hiking which was distributed as a support feature with the very successful Love Story (1970); it secured SS a contract with Universal Pictures' tv division. His tv debut was a segment of the 1969 pilot for ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY, starring Joan Crawford; in 1971 he made LA 2019, an sf-themed episode of The Name of the Game (1968-71), and went on to tv features: Columbo: Murder by the Book (1971), Something Evil (1972), a ghost story, and Savage (1972), a high-tech thriller. He first attracted widespread attention with Duel (1971), a suspenseful tv adaptation of Richard MATHESON's horror story about a motorist pursued by a vindictive petrol tanker.Duel was successfully released overseas as a movie, with 15 extra minutes of characterization to bring it up to feature length, and it led to SS's first theatrical feature, The Sugarland Express (1974), and to the enormously successful assignment of the MONSTER MOVIE Jaws (1975), a box-office rollercoaster about the hunting of a giant shark. After Jaws, in which SS had little script involvement, he opted for a more personal and visionary film, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), which managed on the strength of its extraordinary climactic vision of an alien epiphany to become another major box-office success, despite a lopsided story and an unevenness of tone SS himself tried in vain to rectify in his revision of the material, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - THE SPECIAL EDITION (1980). The novelization Close Encounters of the Third Kind * (1977; rev vt Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition 1980) was published as by SS.After the critically vilified 1941 (1979), SS made a solid return to popular acceptance with the George LUCAS-produced Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a tribute to the Saturday matinee serials of the 1940s, and then scored a phenomenal hit with E.T.: THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982), which currently stands as the most commercially successful film of all time. Sciencefictional in its subject matter but a fairy-tale in feeling, it tells of a child's miraculous friend who happens to be an ALIEN. Since that career high SS has made two Raiders sequels - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)-in between more ambitious, less obviously box-office pictures, adaptations of novels by Alice WALKER and J.G. BALLARD, respectively The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987), and the wistful fantasy Always (1990). His long-awaited but disappointing homage to Disney's Peter Pan (1953) was Hook (1991), a lumbering and sentimental rendition of a fantasy that should have had a certain delicacy in its otherworldliness. However, he had a splendid return to form in 1993, when he directed both the hugely popular sf extravaganza JURASSIC PARK (1993) and the critically acclaimed drama about efforts to shelter Jews in wartime Germany, Schindler's List (1993), which won seven Oscars including - it was a long wait - Best Director.In addition to his work as a director, SS has shown a commitment to genre material in his work as a producer, coproducing and directing episodes of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and the tv series AMAZING STORIES (1985-7). He has done much to further the careers of fellow film-makers Joe DANTE, Robert Zemeckis and Frank Marshall, and has coproduced, usually as Executive Producer through his Amblin Entertainment group, a wide variety of sf, fantasy and horror productions, including Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985), BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985; vt Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear), An American Tail (1986), HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS (1987; vt Bigfoot and the Hendersons), INNERSPACE (1987), ,*BATTERIES NOTINCLUDED (1987), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Land Before Time (1988), BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989), BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III (1989), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Joe vs the Volcano (1990), ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990), An American Tail II (1991) and Cape Fear (1991). Spielberg's Amblin also produced the prehistoric nostalgia movie The Flintstones (1994), but SS received no production credit. In tv Amblin produced the sf series SEAQUEST DSV (1993- ), a sort of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF SEA for a new generation, but like Amazing Stories it has disappointed in the ratings. Tv seems to be an area where the Spielberg magic - or at least the Amblin magic - does not fully operate, as shown by another series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992), an unexpectedly earnest show that slumped badly.Unashamedly populist and sentimental - although not without a gleefully nasty side, as seen in Jaws, Poltergeist and Gremlins - SS has proved himself unquestionably the most commercially successful film-maker of all time, dominating the box office for 16 years with a succession of hits that make up for the occasional 1941. A skilled and in many ways sophisticated director, he is, despite his incredible success, still young enough and powerful enough to be labelled "promising". On the other hand, he has become one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. A big Hollywood story of late 1994 was the annouced partnership between Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, to form a major new film studio into which Amblin Entertainment would be merged, while retaining its own identity. This - if it is not merely a political-industrial power ploy - could have interesting repercussions on the whole industry. [KN/PN]See also: CINEMA; HISTORY OF SF; STEAMPUNK; TELEVISION; UFOS. SPINDIZZY One of the best-loved items of sf TERMINOLOGY. The spindizzy is the ANTIGRAVITY device used to drive flying cities through the Galaxy in James BLISH's series collected as CITIES IN FLIGHT (omni 1970), though he was using the term as early as 1950. He gave the spindizzy a wonderfully plausible rationale, rooted in theoretical physics, in which GRAVITY fields are seen as generated or cancelled by rotation. [PN] SPIN-OFF TIE. SPINRAD, NORMAN (RICHARD) (1940- ) US writer, born in New York - where he has set some impressive fiction - and now resident in France. He began publishing sf with "The Last of the Romany" for ASF in 1963, which he assembled with other early work in The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde (coll 1970), the title story being among the most successful of the attempts made by divers authors to write a tale using the characters and Universe of Michael MOORCOCK's Jerry Cornelius series. The story was originally published in NW, to which NS was a significant contributor during the 1960s, when both the US and UK NEW-WAVE movements, though with different emphases (the UK form tending more selfconsciously to assimilate MAINSTREAM modes like Surrealism), argued against traditional sf, which had failed to use the hard sciences to explore INNER SPACE, regarded as the proper territory of all genuinely serious writing. After publishing two commercial SPACE OPERAS - The Solarians (1966) and Agent of Chaos (1967) - NS subsequently kept faith with that brief and the ethos which generated it.The Men in the Jungle (1967) - which subjects its tough, urban protagonist to a complex set of Realpolitik adventures on a distant planet - demonstrates the vigour and occasionally slapdash bravado of what would become NS's typical style; but it was with his next book, BUG JACK BARRON (1969), that he made his greatest impact on the sheltered world of sf. This long novel was first serialized in a shorter form in NEW WORLDS (1967-8), where its violent texture and profanity rattled the excitable dovecotes of the UK "moral establishment", leading directly to the banning of the magazine by W.H. Smith, a newsagency chain so huge that its action was tantamount to censorship. The equally risible parochialism of the sf world, when confronted by this not particularly shocking novel, was demonstrated by Sam J. LUNDWALL in his Science Fiction: What It's All About (1969; trans exp 1971), where he described and dismissed the book as "practically a collection of obscenities". The novel itself, whose language does not fully conceal a certain sentimentality, deals with a NEAR-FUTURE USA through tv figure Jack Barron and his involvement in a politically corrupt system: the resulting picture of the USA as a hyped, SEX-obsessed, apocalyptic world made the text seem less sf than FABULATION, where this sort of vision is common. The sledgehammer style matched, at points, the content.In NS's next novel, The Iron Dream (1972), the intention to offend was gratifyingly explicit. An ALTERNATE WORLD in which Hitler, thwarted as a politician, must make do with being an author of popular fiction is the frame for a long sf tale from his feverish pen, "Lord of the Swastika". This makes up most of the novel's text and gives NS the opportunity to mock - effectively if at times unrelentingly - some of the less attractive tendencies of right-wing sf, its fetish with gear, its fascist love of hierarchical display, its philistinism, its brutishness, its not entirely secret contempt for the people its HEROES defend. The "Afterword" by "Homer Whipple" just as hilariously guys the kind of critical writing generated by publish-or-perish academics. NS then released 2 further collections - No Direction Home (coll 1975) and The Star-Spangled Future (coll 1979), the latter an adroitly shaped compilation of his first 2 collections - which concisely demonstrate the range of his response to the complexities of a rapidly changing Western world. From this point, that world dominated - as metaphor or in realistic depiction-his work. In A World Between (1979) the citizens of a UTOPIAN world deal with strident threats to their middle way from technophile fascists of the right and lesbian fascists of the left. The Mind Game (1980; vt The Process 1983), not sf, savagely treats a manipulative "church" whose dictates and cynicism are of a sort familiar to sf readers, and the later The Childen of Hamelin (1991), likewise not sf, deals with contemporary people trapped in a cult. The post- HOLOCAUST Songs from the Stars (1980) opposes a restrictive "black" technological rule with an uplift message from a soaring galactic civilization.NS's best 1980s novel was perhaps The Void Captain's Tale (1983) which, with its thematic partner Child of Fortune (1985), comprises what one might call an eroticized vision of the Galaxy. The SPACESHIP in the first tale is driven by Eros, in a very explicit sense; and the female protagonist of the second fertilizes-at least symbolically - all she touches in her elated Wanderjahr among the sparkling worlds. Little Heroes (1987) is set in a nightmarish urban near-future USA, divided into haves and ruthlessly manipulated have-nots; the plot turns on a combination of technology-fixing and co-optation that cuts close to the bone, though by this date NS's weary rage had begun to lose some of its purgative bite. However, the 4 novellas about the state of the USA assembled in Other Americas (coll 1988) show a recovery of NS's urban venom about the self-devouring progress of his native land into the millennium; Russian Spring (1991), set in a near-future world dominated by a USSR liberated by perestroika, again voluminously anatomizes the American Dream, though the effect of the book was muffled by the real-life collapse of the USSR in 1991; but Deus X (1993) adroitly mixed the cod theologizings of a troubled Pope with excursions into CYBERSPACE, where souls may - or may not - be deemed to dwell; and Vampire Junkies (1993 Tomorrow; 1994 chap) neatly contrasts the experiences of Vlad Dracul in the 1990s with those of a hooker addicted to smack; Pictures at Eleven (1994) is associational.Two nonfiction collections - Staying Alive: A Writer's Guide (coll 1983) and Science Fiction in the Real World (coll 1990) - make even more explicit some of his bleak assumptions about the course of the world to which he so vehemently belongs. [JC]Other works: Passing through the Flame (1975), not sf; Riding the Torch (in Threads of Time [anth 1974]; 1978 dos).As Editor: The New Tomorrows (anth 1971); Modern Science Fiction (anth 1974).Nonfiction: Experiment Perilous: Three Essays on Science Fiction (coll 1976 chap) ed Andrew PORTER; The Reasons behind the SFWA Model Paperback Contract (1978 chap).See also: CLONES; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; CYBERPUNK; DEFINITIONS OF SF; DESTINIES; ECOLOGY; END OF THE WORLD; ENTROPY; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; FASTER THAN LIGHT; GAMES AND SPORTS; HITLER WINS; IMMORTALITY; ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; MEDICINE; MUSIC; MUTANTS; PARANOIA; PERCEPTION; POLITICS; POLLUTION; PSYCHOLOGY; SATIRE; SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA; SUN; SWORD AND SORCERY; TECHNOLOGY; WAR. SPIRITUALISM ESCHATOLOGY. SPITTEL, OLAF R. [r] GERMANY. SPITZ, JACQUES (1896-1963) French writer whose first sf novel of interest, L'agonie du globe (1935; trans Margaret Mitchiner as Sever the Earth 1936 UK), describes the consequences attendant upon the splitting of the planet into two halves 50 miles (80km) apart. In La Guerre des mouches ["War of the Flies"] (1938) mutated flies defeat humanity, keeping alive only a few abject specimens, one of whom tells the tale. The SCIENTIST protagonist of L'Homme elastique ["The Elastic Man"] (1938) discovers a method of compressing atoms, allowing him (on request) to create an army of tiny soldiers, who turn out to be examples of Homo superior ( SUPERMAN). In L'Oeil du purgatoire ["The Eye of Purgatory"] (1945) a mad scientist develops a bacillus which, when injected into the protagonist, allows (or forces) him to see the future wherever he looks - a condition which becomes purgatorial as he sees deeper and deeper into the destinies of those around him, until eventually he is capable of perceiving little more than corpses. [JC]See also: FRANCE. SPLATTER MOVIES Term used by 1980s movie-goers to describe films that display gore, disembowelment and mutilation as a central feature. Many exploitation films of the 1970s and 1980s fall into this category, including such fringe sf/ HORROR movies as BAD TASTE (1987), DAY OF THE DEAD (1985), RE-ANIMATOR (1985) and The THING (1982 remake). By no means all such films are bad, though all may be ethically suspect in their apparent appeal to sadistic voyeurism. [PN] SPLIT PERSONALITY PARANOIA; PSYCHOLOGY. SPLIT SECOND Film (1991). Challenge. Dir Tony Maylam, Ian Sharp, starring Rutger Hauer, Kim Cattrall, Neil Duncan, Michael J. Pollard, Alun Armstrong, Pete Postlethwaite, Ian Dury. Screenplay by Gary Scott Thompson. 91 mins. Colour.London, AD2008. The Thames has risen and society is crumbling. Coffee-drinking hard man Hauer and comics-reading Scots intellectual Duncan are brawling buddy cops on the trail of a heart-eating villain who carves astrological symbols on what's left of his victims' chests. Proposed solutions include mutant DNA and the Devil, but in the finale the baddie turns out to be a regulation ALIEN-style Big Monster With Teeth who confronts Hauer on a tube train. Inexplicable events, disappearing characters and logical lapses abound. Maylam, who directs this sf SPLATTER MOVIE at a rapid plod, establishes a Drowned World atmosphere by pouring water into all the sets and painting everything grey; Sharp took over for the action climax. Despite the murkiness of this future world, Hauer stays cool in sunglasses; Duncan's enthusiastic performance offers the sole touch of character. [KN] SPORTS GAMES AND SPORTS. SPRAGUE, CARTER [s] Sam MERWIN Jr. SPRIGEL, OLIVIER Pierre BARBET. SPRUILL, STEVEN G(REGORY) (1946- ) US writer and psychologist. In his first sf novel, Keepers of the Gate (1977; rev 1978), a complicated adventure tale rather in the mode of Keith LAUMER, the alien Proteps of Eridani turn out to be an advanced form of Homo sapiens, and have been suppressing mankind's urge to the stars for selfish reasons; the generic cues for revelling in such a tale are deployed with some competence. He is best known for his Elias Kane sequence - even the protagonist's name seems to be a homage to Isaac ASIMOV's earlier detective Elijah Bailey - about an intelligently moody detective and his superpowered sidekick: The Psychopath Plague (1978), The Imperator Plot (1982) and Paradox Planet (1988). The series seems incomplete; but, although a template interminability attends Kane's repeated assignments, granted him by the current Imperator who rules Earth and several colonies, the passage of time is clearly marked throughout: the woman Kane falls in love with and marries in the 1st vol - whose deadly plague has been induced by aliens - is murdered in the 2nd; and the Imperator who is beheaded, but remains alive, in the 2nd - which concerns this attempted assassination - has been succeeded in the 3rd, which is set on a heavy-gravity colony planet. A sense of potential interestingness pervades even the most convincingly unambitious of SGS's works. [JC]Other works: The Janus Equation (1980 dos); Hellstone (1981); The Genesis Shield (1985); My Soul to Take (1994), a medical sf thriller. SQUIRE, J.C. [r] ALTERNATE WORLDS. SQUIRM BLUE SUNSHINE. SSSSNAKE SSSSSSSS! SSSSSSSS! (vt Ssssnake!) Film (1973). Zanuck-Brown/Universal. Prod Dan Striepeke. Dir Bernard L. Kowalski, starring Strother Martin, Dirk Benedict, Heather Menzies. Screenplay Hal Dresner, based on a story by Striepeke. 99 mins. Colour.In a period when most MONSTER MOVIES were spoofs, this competently made film is unusual for playing it straight (despite the title). An obsessed scientist (Martin) believes that only ophidians (snakes) will survive what he sees as coming ecocatastrophe, so he works on developing snake-like properties - e.g., cold blood - in humans, early failures being sold to the carnival freak-show. He finally succeeds in transforming his daughter's boy-friend (Benedict) into something like a king cobra (rather good make-up by John Chambers). Then along comes a mongoose . . . [JB/PN] STABLEFORD, BRIAN M(ICHAEL) (1948- ) UK writer, critic and academic, with a degree in BIOLOGY and a doctorate in SOCIOLOGY, which he taught 1977-88 before turning to writing full-time. He began his writing career early, collaborating with a schoolfriend, Craig A. Mackintosh (together as Brian Craig), on his first published story, "Beyond Time's Aegis" for Science Fantasy in 1965. BMS then dropped the Brian Craig pseudonym, using it again only in the late 1980s when he undertook to SHARECROP some ties for a GAME-WORLD enterprise ( GAMES WORKSHOP and listing below). His first novel, Cradle of the Sun (1969 dos US), a quest story set in the FAR FUTURE, is notable for its colourful imagery. The Blind Worm (1970 dos US), hastily written, is in the same vein. In these early works, and in most of his subsequent sf novels, BMS put his knowledge of biology to good use, constructing a long series of outrageous but plausible ECOLOGIES whose intricacy sometimes overwhelmed the SPACE-OPERA formats to which he generally adhered over the first 15 years of his career. The early Dies Irae trilogy - The Days of Glory (1971 US), In the Kingdom of the Beasts (1971 US) and Day of Wrath (1971 US) - mixed these usual space-opera trappings with SWORD AND SORCERY. Based on HOMER's Iliad and Odyssey, the trilogy was dismissed as cynical hackwork (not least by BMS himself); although the narrative has some verve, it clearly does not attempt to pay due homage to its source. To Challenge Chaos (1972 US), the last example of BMS's juvenilia, is an overextravagant adventure set on the chaotic hemisphere of a planet that intersects another dimension; short stories associated with this novel are "The Sun's Tears" (1974), "An Offer of Oblivion" (1974) and "Captain Fagan Died Alone" (1976).It was with the Grainger or Hooded Swan series-The Halcyon Drift (1972 US), Rhapsody in Black (1973 US; rev 1975 UK), Promised Land (1974 US), The Paradise Game (1974 US), The Fenris Device (1974 US) and Swan Song (1975 US) - that BMS began to attract serious notice in the USA, where his early work was all first published, being marketed there as adventure sf. The Grainger novels - first-person narratives in a Chandleresque style - concern the adventures of the pilot of a FASTER-THAN-LIGHT spacecraft, the Hooded Swan, on a variety of planets. In the first tale Grainger, marooned on a remote world, becomes host to a mind parasite, a benign entity which occasionally takes over his body and drives it to feats of endurance. In later books the increasingly disillusioned, sardonic, pacific Grainger penetrates further biological mysteries, but the series itself holds back from fully articulating the subversiveness of his behaviour, and there is little sense of accumulating burden. A second series - the Daedalus Mission books, comprising The Florians (1976 US), Critical Threshold (1977 US), Wildeblood's Empire (1977 US), The City of the Sun (1978 US), Balance of Power (1979 US) and The Paradox of Sets (1979 US) - recounts to similar effect the various experiences of the crew of the spaceship Daedalus, which has been sent out to re-contact lost Earth colonies.Most of BMS's fiction has been confined to series, but Man in a Cage (1975 US), an unformulaic singleton, deals with the PSYCHOLOGY of social adaptation as dramatized through a schizophrenic narrator selected to participate in a space-project where "sane" men have already proved inadequate. A powerfully written but difficult novel, it is slightly reminiscent of the best work of Robert SILVERBERG and Barry N. MALZBERG. The Mind-Riders (1976 US), perhaps somewhat more conventional, is narrated by a cynical boxer who performs via an electronic simulation device while the audience "plugs in" to his emotions. Like Grainger's wonderful spaceship, and like the false personality which "cages" the hero of Man in a Cage, the simulator is an armour surrounding the self, enabling the protagonist to survive in a hostile world. The Face of Heaven (1976) -the first part of a trilogy published in 1 vol as The Realms of Tartarus (1977 US) - is a biological phantasmagoria concerning a UTOPIA built on a huge platform above the Earth's surface, and the conflict with the mutated lifeforms which proliferate below. This tale, choked with ingenious invention and grotesqueries, and The Walking Shadow (1979) stand as BMS's most clearly STAPLEDON-esque epics, and show a vein of contemplative wonder that he was later - in the impressive academic study, The Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950 (1985) - to characterize as an essential element tending to distinguish UK from US sf.Further novels of interest from this period include The Castaways of Tanagar (1981 US) and The Gates of Eden (1983 US). After beginning the Asgard trilogy with Journey to the Center (1982 US; rev 1989 UK)-which he completed with Invaders from the Centre (1990) and The Centre Cannot Hold (1990) - BMS stopped producing fiction for some time, concentrating on popular and scholarly studies of sf and FUTUROLOGY like The Science in Science Fiction (1982) with David LANGFORD and Peter NICHOLLS, The Sociology of Science Fiction (1985 US) and, with Langford, The Third Millennium: A History of the World AD 2000-3000 (1985); he also contributed very widely during this period to a number of journals, including FOUNDATION, and to various scholarly anthologies, including many of the essays in E.F. BLEILER's 2 anthologies devoted to extended studies of individual authors: Science Fiction Writers (anth 1982 US) and Supernatural Fiction Writers (2 vols anth 1985 US). He has served as contributing editor to both editions of this encyclopedia.Whether or not these years away from fiction were in themselves rejuvenating, on returning to sf BMS produced in short order his 3 finest novels to date. The Empire of Fear (1988) is an alternate history ( ALTERNATE WORLDS) of Europe from the Middle Ages to the present in which immortal vampires - whose condition is here scientifically premised - dominate the world; told with the geographic sweep and visionary didacticism typical of the SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE, the book successfully assimilates into sf modes some of the vast lore of the vampire. In The Werewolves of London (1990) and its sequels The Angel of Pain (1991) and The Carnival of Destruction, the first two set in a 19th-century UK and the third reflecting the events of WW1, BMS appropriates further material from other genres, creating a sequence in which werewolves, bred by primordial godling-like creatures at the dawn of time, participate in an apocalyptic - and thoroughly discussed - testing of the nature of reality. With these novels, and with the sharp tales assembled in Sexual Chemistry: Sardonic Tales of the Genetic Revolution (coll 1991), BMS suddenly became a writer whose fiction befitted his intelligence, for in much of his earlier work a certain tone of chill indifference had tended to baulk the reader's identification. The change was most welcome, and Young Blood (1992) - which could be described as a scientific romance about the biochemical roots of human identity within the context of an unconventional vampire tale - fully justifies the sense that BS had entered his years of flourishing. [DP/JC]Other works: The Last Days of the Edge of the World (1978), fantasy juvenile; Optiman (1980 US; vt War Games 1981 UK); The Cosmic Perspective/Custer's Last Stand (coll 1985 chap dos US); Slumming in Voodooland (1991 chap US); The Innsmouth Heritage (1992 chap), a sequel to H.P. LOVECRAFT's "Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1942); Firefly: A Novel of the Far Future (1994 US), a novel mostly composed very early in BS's career, but only published now.As Brian Craig: For Games Workshop, the Orfeo sequence of fantasies tied to the Warhammer fantasy game-world - Zaragoz * (1989); Plague Demon * (1990); Storm Warriors * (1991) - plus Ghost Dancers * (1991), tied to the Dark Future sf game-world.As Editor: The Decadence anthology sequence, being The Dedalus Book of Decadence (Moral Ruins) (anth 1990) and The Second Dedalus Book of Decadence: The Black Feast (anth 1992); Tales of the Wandering Jew (anth 1991); The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy: The 19th Century (anth 1991); The Dedalus Book of Femmes Fatales (anth 1992).Nonfiction: The Mysteries of Modern Science (1977); A Clash of Symbols: The Triumph of James Blish (1979 chap US); Masters of Science-Fiction: Essays on Science-Fiction Authors (coll 1981 chap US); Future Man: Brave New World or Genetic Nightmare? (1984).See also: ANTHROPOLOGY; ARTS; COLLECTIONS; COSMOLOGY; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; CRYONICS; DEFINITIONS OF SF; ESP; EVOLUTION; FANTASY; GAMES AND SPORTS; GENERATION STARSHIPS; GENETIC ENGINEERING; GODS AND DEMONS; HARD SF; HISTORY IN SF; HISTORY OF SF; HORROR IN SF; IMMORTALITY; INTERZONE; LIVING WORLDS; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; MESSIAHS; MONSTERS; MYTHOLOGY; PARANOIA; PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS; PASTORAL; SEX; STEAMPUNK. STABLES, (WILLIAM) GORDON (1840-1910) Scottish author of children's fiction; he served as surgeon on a whaling boat and later with the Royal Navy; some of his books were signed Dr Gordon Stables, RN. He wrote extensively for the BOYS' PAPERS, including The Boys' Own Paper, where he published many FANTASTIC VOYAGES in competition with the serials of Jules VERNE; the most Verne-like were The Cruise of the Crystal Boat (1891), a moralistic tale of aerial adventure in an electrically powered craft, and An Island Afloat (1903). LOST-WORLD elements appeared in some stories, notably In Quest of the Giant Sloth (1901; vt The Strange Quest 1937) and In Regions of Perpetual Snow (1904), and became more dominant in The City at the Pole (1906), which envisages a temperate polar region and a Viking community and prehistoric survivals there. His only excursion outside these themes was his future- WAR novel, The Meteor Flag of England (1905). [JE]Other works: The Cruise of the Snowbird (1882) and its sequel Wild Adventures Round the Pole (1883); From Pole to Pole (1886); Frank Hardinge (1898); In the Great White Land (1902).See also: SPACESHIPS. STACPOOLE, H(ENRY) DE VERE (1865-1951) UK author best known for his South Sea romances, including non-sf ROBINSONADES like, most famously, The Blue Lagoon (1908), filmed in 1948 and 1980. His LOST-WORLD novel is The City in the Sea (1926). He wrote several weird novels: Death, the Knight, and the Lady (1897), The Man who Lost Himself (1918), The Ghost Girl (1918) and The Sunstone (1936). His sf proper was generally restricted to the magazines; it includes a world- DISASTER story, "The White Eye" (1918). The Story of My Village (1947), his only sf novel proper, depicts a plague of blindness which stops progress short, saving the world from nuclear HOLOCAUST. [JE]Other works: The Vengeance of Mynheer Van Lik (coll 1934). STACY, JAN (1948-1989) US writer of military sf novels, including the first 4 vols of the Doomsday Warrior, some in collaboration with Ryder SYVERTSEN under the joint pseudonym Ryder Stacy; Syvertsen continued the series solo after JS's death (see his entry for titles). Their only non-series collaboration appeared under their real names: The Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983). Writing as Jan Sievert, they began, with C.A.D.S. (1985), the C.A.D.S. sequence, carried on separately by Syvertsen and David ALEXANDER. As Craig Sargent JS wrote the Last Ranger sequence of military-sf novels set in a post- HOLOCAUST venue: The Last Ranger (1986), #2: The Savage Stronghold (1986), #3: The Madman's Mansion (1986), #4: The Rabid Brigadier (1987), #5: The War Weapons (1987), #6: The Warlord's Revenge (1988), #7: The Vile Village (1988), #8: The Cutthroat Cannibals (1988), #9: The Damned Disciples (1988) and #10: Is This the End? (1989). [JC] STACY, RYDER Joint pseudonym of Jan STACY and Ryder SYVERTSEN (whom see for titles), and solo pseudonym, after Stacy's death, of the latter. [JC] STAFFORD, PETER Paul TABORI. STAHL, HENRI [r] ROMANIA. STAIG, LAURENCE (FREDERICK) (1950- ) UK writer who began publishing sf with "Hello Hugo" in Twisted Circuits (anth1987) ed Mick Gowar, and whose vigorously told sf and fantasy novels, usually forteenage readers, include The Network(1988),Dark Toys and Consumer Goods (coll 1989),Digital Vampires (1989), The Glimpses (1989), Smoke-stackLightning(1991) and Shapeshifter(1992). He also wrote the illuminating ItalianWestern: The Opera of Violence (1975) with Tony Williams. [JC] STAINES, TREVOR [s] John BRUNNER. STALKER Russian film, 1979. Mosfilm. Dir Andrei TARKOVSKY, starring Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko. Production design Tarkovsky. Screenplay Arkady and Boris STRUGATSKI, based on their Roadside Picnic (1972; trans 1977). 161 mins. B/w and colour.The original novel tells of a mysterious Zone in Canada where enigmatic artefacts can be found, left there like picnic litter by aliens. Tarkovsky's somewhat inaccessible film, set in a desolate, unnamed country which is probably to be read as an allegorical RUSSIA, de-emphasizes the sf elements. In place of the alien artefacts is the Room, where (maybe) one's most secret wish will be granted. To reach the Room, one must enter the Zone (photographed in muted colour, as opposed to the bleak b/w opening sequence set in an industrial wasteland) - perhaps a Bermuda Triangle, perhaps an ironic gift from a probably nonexistent God - which is a little like the alien killer-maze in Algis BUDRYS's ROGUE MOON (1960): it is a mixture of dereliction and greenery, waterlogged, a maze of ever-changing lethal traps, to be traversed only in a kind of drunkard's walk, an arbitrary zigzag. The Stalker, the shaven-headed smuggler-saint whose wretched life flares up only within the Zone, which he loves, is guide to the Writer and the Professor, the former seeking genius, the latter secretly planning to bomb the Room.S is agonizingly static, punctuated by abstract philosophical conversations with long pauses, and yet for some viewers it has an almost unequalled hypnotic intensity. This is partly due to Tarkovsky's lingering artist's eye, catching the beauty of ugliness as, for example, the camera pans endlessly across a shallow lake in the Zone whose floor is kitchen tiles, passing indifferently across coins, syringes, icons, calendars, a gun, all looming through the weed. The Room is reached, but left unentered and unbombed. Afterwards, at the Stalker's home, we witness his legless daughter (the children of stalkers being often mutated) push a glass slowly across a table by telekinesis while her exhausted father sleeps, the only unambiguous miracle of the film. S is a meditation on faith and cynicism, certainly pretentious, memorable for some, and perhaps the grimmest metaphor for Russia produced by a Russian in our generation. [PN]See also: MUSIC. STALLMAN, ROBERT (1930-1980) Literary critic, professor of English at Western Michigan University, author of the Beast trilogy, the last 2 books of which were published posthumously: The Orphan (1980), The Captive (1981) and The Beast (1982; vt The Book of the Beast UK). The books are complex, sensitively written FABULATIONS, fitting between the generic borders of sf and HORROR, and update the myth of the werewolf with the sf premise that they are a chrysalis form of alien life; when two mate they will trigger a new phase in their life-cycle. The books do not, however, feel very sf-like, and they most come to life in the opposing tugs between the first beast's life as beast and as human, both phases desiring autonomy. The awkwardly structured last book of this engrossing series probably needed an auctorial revision which it could not be given. [PN] STAMEY, SARA (LUCINDA) (1953- ) US writer in whose Wild Card Run sequence of sf adventures-Wild Card Run (1987), Win, Lose, Draw (1988) and Double Blind (1990) - a refreshingly tangential attitude towards plotting keeps a young female protagonist with PSI POWERS hopscotching from planet to planet. En route she embraces her own tangled family romance on one world, and elsewhere confronts some AI conundra, sensing that the entire venue of her sport is in fact a galactic experiment on their part. [JC] STAND, THE US tv miniseries (1994). Laurel Entertainment/ABC Television. Exec prods Stephen KING and Richard Rubinstein. Dir Mick Garris, teleplay by King based on his own novel THE STAND (1978, text restored rev 1990). Starring Gary Sinese as Stu Redman, Molly Ringwald as Frannie Goldsmith, Rob Lowe as Nick Andros, Adam Storke as Larry Underwood, Laura San Giacomo as Nadine, Ruby Dee as Mother Abagail, James Sheridan as Randall Flagg, Matt Frewer as Trashcan Man and many others. Eight hours divided into four two-hour episodes.King's enormous novel about the HOLOCAUST AND AFTER, specifically about a plague produced by the military that wipes out most of near-future America, was optioned as a feature film for some years, but nobody could find a way of fitting such a huge story into conventional film length, and the dark subject matter also worried the studios. The tv solution was probably the best, and it is indeed a well made miniseries, probably Garris's best piece of direction to date, and something of a television milestone. Hovering between sf and fantasy, both book and miniseries focus on character studies as the surviors slowly begin to rebuild, with the democratic good guys restoring a decent sense of community in Denver and the fascist bad guys in Las Vegas planning to nuke them. Both groups have quasi-supernatural guardians, the old black woman Mother Abigail standing for good, and Randall Flagg, the Dar Man, for evil. Some sf fans feel that the supernatural subtext diminishes the story's strength as science fiction, but the story remains an optimistic, populist classic about the endurance of the human spirit after enormous DISASTER, and the miniseries retains much of this strength. It is available on videotape. [PN] STANDARD MAGAZINES Ned L. PINES; SPACE STORIES; STARTLING STORIES; THRILLING WONDER STORIES. STANFORD, J(OHN) K(EITH) (1892-1971) UK writer, mostly of humorous material, whose sf SATIRE, Full Moon at Sweatenham: A Nightmare (1953), takes rather clumsy potshots at a decadent, ludicrous 1960 UK; the welfare state is guyed. [JC]Other works: The Twelfth (1944 chap). STANG, [Reverend] IVAN (1949- ) US writer, given the title "Reverend" by the Church of the SubGenius. He ed The Book of the SubGenius (anth 1983), a SATIRE on other religions and cults in the form of densely packed clip art relating the teachings of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, a former encyclopedia salesman. The crackpot literature that inspired the book is reviewed in the nonfiction High Weirdness by Mail: A Directory of the Fringe-Made Prophets, Crackpots & True Visionaries (1988). IS also ed Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob": Short Stories in the SubGenius Mythos * (coll 1990), much of whose content is sf. [NT] STANGERUP, HENRIK (1937- ) Danish journalist, playwright and novelist who worked mainly within the tradition of "new realism" prevalent in Denmark during the 1960s; he also wrote historical fiction. His sf novel Manden der ville vaere skyldig (1973; trans David Gress-Wright as The Man who Wanted to be Guilty 1982 UK) satirically assaults the welfare state and the Social Democratic party in a NEAR-FUTURE tale of a man who accidentally kills his wife and is treated by the state not as a criminal but as a patient, stifling his natural need to assume some personal guilt for the deed. The book was filmed in 1990 by Ole Roos. [ND]See also: DENMARK. STANILAND, MEABURN (? - ) UK writer whose Back to the Future (1947), in no way connected to BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) and its sequels, sends its protagonist into a bureaucratic DYSTOPIAN future UK. [JC] STANLEY, A(LFRED) M(ORTIMER) (1888-1966) US writer in whose Tomorrow's Yesterday (1949) an archaeologist wakes up in a future where sex-roles are reversed and mental growth is matched by physical decay. [JC] STANLEY, WILLIAM (FORD ROBINSON) (1829-1909) UK writer, often on economic issues, of sf interest for The Case of The. Fox: Being his Prophecies under Hypnotism of the Period Ending A.D. 1950. A Political Utopia (1903). Hypnosis releases the "prophetic mental element" in a poet, Theodore Fox; the UTOPIA he describes in a series of visions, with its Federal Europe, electrified cars and Channel Tunnel, has few unusual elements. At the end, perhaps dazzled, Fox kills himself. [JC] STANTON, KEN Manning Lee STOKES. STANTON, PAUL Pseudonym of UK writer (Arthur) David Beaty (1919- ), who wrote thrillers under his own name. Village of Stars (1960) as by PS was an unremarkable NEAR-FUTURE nuclear- WAR thriller. [JC] STAPLEDON, (WILLIAM) OLAF (1886-1950) UK writer and philosopher, born of well-to-do parents in the Wirral peninsula near Liverpool, where he spent the greater part of his life. In Waking World (1934) he admitted that he lived "chiefly on dividends and other ill-gotten gains". The name Olaf does not indicate foreign antecedents: his parents happened to be reading Carlyle's The Early Kings of Norway (coll 1875) at the time. Memories of childhood in Suez and a cultivated family background are recaptured in Youth and Tomorrow (1946). He was educated at Abbotsholme, a progressive public school, and at Balliol College, Oxford. For a short period he worked without enthusiasm in the family shipping office in Port Said, an experience he used in his highly autobiographical last novel, A Man Divided (1950). There is scattered evidence that the international flavour of Port Said influenced his complex ideas about "true community". His service with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in WWI helped him formulate his pacifism, and provided material for Last Men in London (1932). He took a doctorate in philosophy at Liverpool University in 1925.OS began publishing essays as early as 1908; his first book was Latter-Day Psalms (coll 1914 chap), a small volume of privately printed verse. It is remarkable only for showing a preoccupation at the outset with one of the themes that would engage him for the rest of his life: the irrelevance of a RELIGION based on hopes of IMMORTALITY and the hypothesis of an evolving god. There was a gap of 15 years before his next book, A Modern Theory of Ethics (1929), written when OS was 43. Here is the philosophical underpinning for all the major ideas that would appear repeatedly in the fiction: moral obligation as a teleological requirement; ecstasy as a cognitive intuition of cosmic excellence; personal fulfilment of individual capacities as an intrinsic good; community as a necessary prerequisite for individual fulfilment; and the hopeless inadequacy of human faculties for the discovery of truth. It was this last conviction which provided the springboard for the writing of his fiction; all of it, by some speculative device or other, strives to overcome the congenital deficiencies of the ordinary human being.LAST AND FIRST MEN (1930), OS's first novel, caused something of a sensation. Contemporary writers and critics acclaimed it, though later it would for a time be nearly forgotten. The book employs a timescale of 2 billion years, during which 18 races of humanity rise and fall. The story is told by one of the Last (18th) Men working through the "docile but scarcely adequate brain" of one of the 1st Men (ourselves). The civilization of the 1st Men (he explains) reached its highest points in Socrates (in the search for truth) and Jesus (in self-oblivious worship). The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 15th, 16th and 18th Men represent higher orders of wisdom. The emigration of the 5th Men to VENUS is an early example of TERRAFORMING, and the construction of the 9th Men to adapt them for Neptune ( OUTER PLANETS) is likewise for GENETIC ENGINEERING. In the intimate and less expansive Last Men in London, one of the Last Men returns to the time of WWI, enters into profound symbiosis with a young human, and attempts to arouse the Race Mind.In Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest (1935) the individual SUPERMAN appears, although his attributes are spiritual and intellectual, quite divorced from the supermen of the COMICS and PULP MAGAZINES. John recapitulates in his own evolution some of the characteristics of the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Men. He and his fellow "supernormals" finally achieve something akin to the wisdom of the 18th Men; a spiritual gain which costs them their lives: when normal humans threaten to destroy their island, they destroy themselves rather than fight back.STAR MAKER (1937) is often regarded as OS's greatest work. Its cosmic range, fecundity of invention, precision and grandeur of language, structural logic, and above all its attempt to create a universal system of philosophy by which modern human beings might live, permit comparison with DANTE ALIGHIERI's Divine Comedy. The narrator is rapt from a suburban hilltop and becomes a "disembodied, wandering viewpoint", rather like Dante's own protagonist. Over a timespan which extends to 100 billion years, he first observes "Other Men", whose extraordinary development of scent and taste should remind us of the relative nature of our own perceived values; his purview then extends to "strange mankinds", including the Human Echinoderms - whose communal method of reproduction provides an ingenious metaphor for the ideal of true community - and to a wide range of species far removed from mankind. Of these ALIENS, among the most interesting are the "ichthyoids" and "arachnoids". Over a long period of time these 2 species come together in a symbiosis; the ichthyoids are artistic and mystical, while the arachnoids are dexterous and practical. The development of the relationship provides OS's most extended and detailed metaphor for the ideal of true community, which has its microcosm in a pair of human lovers and its macrocosm in a Universe of "minded" LIVING WORLDS. The narrator proceeds to the "supreme moment of the cosmos" in which he faces the Star Maker and discovers something of his pitiless nature.Paradoxically, the book with the greatest human interest is sometimes said to be Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord (1944), the story of a dog with enhanced INTELLIGENCE, consciousness and sensibility. The dog, with its natural limitations, is a paradigm of our own limited capacity; but at the same time the dog's superior gifts - e.g., in the faculty of scent - are another reminder of human inadequacy. As in Odd John, the MUTANT being, when faced with the violence of normals and their incomprehension, dies - this time directly at their hands.The four works of sf described constitute the living core of OS's fiction. Both LAST AND FIRST MEN and STAR MAKER have their advocates as the finest sf ever written; many critics argue that Odd John is the best novel about a superman, and that Sirius is the best book with a nonhuman protagonist. All 4 show OS's unwavering concern with the pursuit of truth and with the impossibility of our species ever finding it. Each sets up a speculative device to leap over the plodding faculties of Homo sapiens: the supernormal intelligence of Homo superior in LAST AND FIRST MEN and Odd John, and the alternative intelligence of alien creatures in STAR MAKER and Sirius. Along with the quest for truth, and as a necessary accompaniment to it, there is a search for the gateways to a "way of the spirit". These constant preoccupations give to all OS's work a striking consistency, and it is possible to place everything he did within a highly original scheme of METAPHYSICS. Everything has its place in the same cosmic history that the Star Maker coldly regards. In his avatar of Jahweh, the Star Maker was invoked at the beginning in Latter-Day Psalms; and as the "mind's star" and "phantom deity" he will be there at the end in the posthumous The Opening of the Eyes (1954).Of OS's remaining fiction, perhaps The Flames (1947 chap) deserves most attention. The "flames" are members of an alien race, originally natives of the Sun, who can be released when igneous rock is heated; they have affinities with the "supernormals" who occur on OS's other worlds. There are similarities with the later-discovered Nebula Maker (1976), apparently written in the mid-1930s as part of an early draft for STAR MAKER and then put aside. It relates the history of the nebulae and shows how their striving is brought to nothing by an uncaring God. Religion is dismissed as the opium of the people in Old Man in New World (1944 chap). Supermen reappear in Darkness and the Light (1942) and cosmic history is recapitulated in Death into Life (1946). OS's insistence on scrupulously considering opposed points of view, and his sceptical intelligence, found an admirable vehicle in the imaginary conversations of Four Encounters (1976), probably written in the later 1940s. Of OS's remaining nonfiction, Philosophy and Living (1939), written after the best of his fiction, is the most comprehensive work. The best introduction for the general reader is Beyond the "Isms" (1942), whose last chapter, under the characteristic heading "The Upshot", provides an admirable summary of his philosophy and a clear exposition of what he means by the "way of the spirit".OS was writing in an ancient tradition of European speculative fiction. He called his stories "fantastic fiction of a semi-philosophical kind". He was - at least initially - unaware of GENRE SF and was somewhat taken aback when in the 1940s he was acclaimed by sf fans; he was even more startled when shown the contemporary magazines which provided their staple fodder. Ironically, the acclamation he received as an sf writer may partially account for his total neglect by historians of modern literature. At the same time he is sometimes ignored by sf commentators - e.g., Kingsley AMIS in New Maps of Hell (1960 US) - presumably partly because he did not write for the sf magazines and partly because his work is difficult to anthologize. OS is, however, though sometimes dimly perceived, the Star Maker behind many subsequent stories of the FAR FUTURE and GALACTIC EMPIRES. He did much original and seminal thinking about such matters as ALTERNATE WORLDS, COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS, COSMOLOGY, CYBORGS, ESP, HIVE-MINDS, IMMORTALITY, MONSTERS, MUTANTS and TIME TRAVEL. Arthur C. CLARKE and James BLISH are among the few sf writers who have expressed their indebtedness to him, though his influence, both direct and indirect, on the development of many concepts which now permeate genre sf is probably second only to that of H.G. WELLS. [MA/JC]Other works: New Hope for Britain (1939); Saints and Revolutionaries (1939); Worlds of Wonder (omni 1949 US), assembling The Flames, Death into Life and Old Man in New World; To the End of Time (omni 1953 US), assembling LAST AND FIRST MEN (cut), STAR MAKER, Odd John, Sirius and The Flames; Odd John, and Sirius (omni 1972 US); Far Future Calling: Uncollected Science Fiction and Fantasies of Olaf Stapledon (coll 1979 US) ed Sam MOSKOWITZ; Nebula Maker, and Four Encounters (omni 1983 US); Letters Across the World: The Love Letters of Olaf Stapledon and Agnes Miller, 1913-1919 (coll 1987 Australia; vt Talking Across the World 1987 US); numerous uncollected articles for such scholarly journals as Mind and Philosophy.About the author: Olaf Stapledon (1982) by P.A. McCarthy; Olaf Stapledon: A Man Divided (1984) by Leslie A. FIEDLER; Olaf Stapledon: A Bibliography (1984) by Harvey J. Satty and Curtis C. SMITH; Olaf Stapledon and his Critics (1988) by Curtis C. Smith.See also: ANTHROPOLOGY; APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); DEVOLUTION; END OF THE WORLD; EVOLUTION; FRANCE; GODS AND DEMONS; HISTORY IN SF; HISTORY OF SF; INVASION; LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; MAINSTREAM WRITERS OF SF; MUSIC; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM; PHYSICS; SOCIOLOGY; SUN. STARBURST UK monthly nonfiction magazine about sf, fantasy and horror in the media (primarily films and tv). Small- BEDSHEET slick format. Founded Jan 1978, first published by Starburst Magazines, London, ed Dez Skinn, but soon taken over by MARVEL COMICS and ed Alan Mackenzie until #77 (Jan 1985), then by Roger P. Birchall to #79 and Cefn Ridout to #87. With #88 (Dec 1985) the magazine left Marvel and was taken over by Visual Imagination, with Stephen Payne the new ed.What must have been designed as little more than a fan magazine for kids became rather good, especially under Mackenzie's editorship, and it was for some time in the UK the only (fairly) reliable source for developments in fantastic films and tv. What probably saved S, in contrast to its US equivalent STARLOG, is that it never gave the impression of being in hock to the film studios. S had a collection of eccentric but well informed critics, some slavishly devoted to SPLATTER MOVIES; among the regular contributors were John BROSNAN, Tony Crawley and Alan Jones, and sf writers like Robert P. HOLDSTOCK, David LANGFORD and Ian WATSON made occasional appearances. During the year following the change of ownership from Marvel the magazine became blander and more juvenile. The magazine had reached #167 in 1992. [PN] STAR COPS UK tv series (1987). BBC TV. Devised Chris Boucher, prod Evgeny Gridneff, script ed Joanna Willett. Dirs Christopher Baker, Graeme Harper. Writers Boucher (5 episodes), Philip Martin, John Collee. Leading players David Calder as Nathan Spring, Erick Ray Evans, Linda Newton, Jonathan Adams as Krivenko, the Russian commander of Moonbase. 9 55min episodes. Colour.AD2027. Nathan Spring is the new head detective of the International Space Police Force, an undisciplined force with poor morale whose headquarters are on Moonbase, and whose policing area includes manned orbital space stations. Spring whips them into shape, and they solve crimes. The low-key realism of the series was efficient enough, but in the end it seemed little more than just another cop show, failing to imagine the future with any real vividness or depth. [PN] STARDATE US gaming magazine, small- BEDSHEET slick format, published first by gaming company FASA for issues #1-#7 (which included several double issues), 1984-5. These issues contained no fiction, but did have sf reviews and articles. With #8 (Oct 1985) S changed hands (to Associates International, Inc., Delaware), subtitle (becoming Stardate: The Multi-Media Science Fiction Magazine), editors (Ted WHITE and David BISCHOFF) and contents (one third gaming, one third film/tv and one third fiction, including stories by William GIBSON, Jack HALDEMAN, Damon KNIGHT, John SHIRLEY and William F. WU). It lasted 4 issues in this format, folding after #11 (Mar/Apr 1986). [PN] STARGATE Film (1994). Le Studio Canal+ (U.S.)/Centropolis Film in association with Carolco. Exec prod Mario Kassar; dir Roland Emmerich; screenplay Dean Devlin & Emmerich; starring Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Viveca Lindfors, Alexis Cruz, Mili Avital. 121 mins. Colour.Entertaining, spectacular, big-budget ($55 million, 1,900 extras) SCIENCE-FANTASY epic, designed to appeal to a similar audience to those of Steven SPIELBERG's three Indiana Jones movies. The unlikely plot, harking back to pulp fiction of the 1930s and kids' movie serials of the 1940s, has a prologue showing a huge metallic ring, inscribed with strange symbols, dug up by archaeologists in Egypt near the pyramids in 1928. In the present day a young, clever Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (well played by Spader) is hired to translate the symbology, and is amazed to find himself part of a US military project. The ring turns out to be a "stargate", a matter transmitter, connected to another planet in another galaxy. The VON DANIKEN style explanation is that Earth's Egyptian civilisation and technology were instigated by an alien, an immoral energy form capable of inhabiting other bodies, masquerading on our Earth as the sun god Ra, but now long gone. A military party, led by Colonel Jack O'Neil (Russell), along with the Egyptologist, goes through the stargate, finds another planet, Abydos, with an ancient Egyptian style of civilisation and three moons. The inhabitants there (humans) are in thrall to the sinister Ra (played with androgynous beauty by Jaye Davidson) who occupies something between a spacecraft and a pyramid, and is surrounded by seemingly superhuman god figures dressed as Anubis, Osiris and so on. The best half of the film is the first, with a series of very well contrived riddles to be unravelled, and much tension built up. After that, a comparatively routine series of adventures takes place with some friction between the intellectual "dweeb" Jackson and the tough but emotional colonel: the quasi-Egyptians are incited to revolt, and the malicious Ra is dealt with. The special effects are very well done (visual effects Kit West, production design Holger Gross, digital effects Jeffrey A. Okun, Egyptian god designs and creature effects Patrick Tatopoulos). This is a much better film than Emmerich and Devlin's previous sf collaboration, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992), though it has no intellectual pretensions and seems pitched at a rather young audience. [PN] STARK, HARRIET (?1883-?1969) US writer who may have published at a precocious age; in her moral tale, The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of Today (1900), a lady is infected with a beauty-enhancing germ ( BIOLOGY). Her character subsequently deteriorates, and she dies. [JC/PN] STARK, (DELBERT) RAYMOND (1919- ) UK writer in whose Crossroads to Nowhere (1956) an anarchist unsuccessfully confronts a future dictatorship before escaping into the wilds, where his kind may survive. [JC] STARK, RICHARD Donald E. WESTLAKE. STARKE, HENDERSON [s] Kris NEVILLE. STAR*LINE Robert FRAZIER; POETRY; SCIENCE FICTION POETRY ASSOCIATION. STARLOG US monthly nonfiction magazine about sf (and fantasy) in the media, largely films and tv, founded 1976, current; small- BEDSHEET, saddle-stapled; publishers have included O'Quinn Studios and Starlog Communications, New York; editors have included Howard Zimmerman and David McDonnell.This magazine aimed at the juvenile market has been a success (circulation around quarter of a million), and has generated spin-off books and posters and various companion magazines, including Fangoria (mainstream horror) and Gorezone (cult horror and SPLATTER MOVIES). Indeed, the horror companions have been livelier than S, which makes heavy use of studio publicity pictures; in order to maintain good relationships with the studios S does not review current films and is undiscriminating throughout. Many of its articles are interviews with actors. That said, the sheer volume of material these magazines have published makes them a useful resource for researchers seeking production details, tv episode guides and so forth. David GERROLD has been a columnist for S. A somewhat more adult (on average) UK version of the same sort of magazine is STARBURST, and a much more adult US magazine about fantastic film is CINEFANTASTIQUE. #214 in early 1995 was the 19th anniversary issue. A recent spin-off is Starlog Platinum Edition, which had reached #8 by early 1995. [PN] STARLOST, THE Canadian tv series, syndicated by CTV (1973). Executive prods Douglas Trumbull, Jerry Zeitman. Prod William Davidson. Series created Cordwainer Bird (pseudonym of Harlan ELLISON). Technical advisor Ben BOVA. Starring Keir Dullea, Gay Rowen, Robin Ward, William Osler. 1 season of 17 50min episodes. Colour.This series about life on a vast GENERATION STARSHIP, none of whose occupants know its entire extent, should have been good given the quality of some of its creators (Trumbull, Ellison, Bova). In fact it was dire, and only in Canada were all episodes aired. Ellison repudiated it, and Bova wrote a roman a clef about the fiasco, The Starcrossed (1975). Ellison's original script for episode 1 (not as filmed) won the prestigious Writer's Guild of America Award, and was novelized: Phoenix without Ashes * (1975) as by Ellison with Edward BRYANT. [PN] STAR MAIDENS (vt Space Maidens) UK/West German tv series (1976). A Portman Production for Scottish and Global/Jost Graf von Hardenberg & Co. and Werbung-in-Rundfunk. Prod James Gatward. Dirs Gatward, Wolfgang Storch, Freddie Francis. Writers Eric Paice, John Lucarotti, Ian Stuart Black, Otto Strang. Starring Judy Geeson, Dawn Addams, Pierre Brice, Gareth Thomas, Christiane Kruger, Lisa Harrow, Christian Quadflieg, Ronald Hines, Derek Farr. 13 30min episodes. Colour.On the planet Medusa women have enslaved men, two of whom (Brice and Thomas) steal a spaceship and flee to Earth. They are pursued by Medusan women, led by Fulvia (Geeson), who take Earth hostages (Harrow and Quadflieg) in their place. The plotting was chaotic and the role-reversal SATIRE unsubtle. The series was (by UK standards) expensive, and audience figures did not justify the cost of a 2nd season. STARMAN 1. Film (1984). Delphi Productions II/Columbia. Dir John CARPENTER, starring Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, Charles Martin Smith, Richard Jaeckel. Screenplay Bruce A. Evans, Raynold Gideon (and Dean Riesner, uncredited). 115 mins. Colour.Carpenter ventured into SPIELBERG territory in this sweet - possibly saccharine - story of a wide-eyed innocent arriving from space. The Starman (Bridges), first seen as a ball of light, exactly recreates himself in the image of young Jenny's dead husband, kidnaps Jenny (Allen) in the nicest possible way, learns about human customs, is pursued by government forces who want to study or kill him, raises a deer and Jenny (separately) from the dead like an affably dopy Christ, impregnates Jenny, and leaves again. Most of S is a protracted chase sequence across the USA, and, though it has rewarding moments and touching performances from its leads, it is too long and slight. The subtext (What would happen to Christ if He came again? We'd crucify Him) is serious enough, but evoked only playfully. The novelization is Starman * (1984) by Alan Dean FOSTER.2. Columbia Television produced a spin-off 22-episode tv series, also called Starman, which ran 1 season 1986-7. This dealt in a stereotyped manner with the return to Earth, 11 years later, of the Starman (now played by Robert Hays), his reconciliation with his son, his seemingly endless search for Jenny and an equally protracted search for him by a federal agent. [PN]See also: CINEMA. STARMONT HOUSE Former US SMALL PRESS, located successively in West Linn, Oregon, and in Mercer Island, Washington State from 1980, founded 1976 by T.E. DIKTY, specializing in monographs on individual sf writers, along with some BIBLIOGRAPHIESof and guides to sf magazines and book lines, and occasional reprints of pulp and paperback fiction. SH's first book was The Annotated Guide to Robert E. Howard's Sword & Sorcery (1970) by Robert WEINBERG, but its best known line was the Starmont Reader's Guide series of sf monographs, established in 1979, ed to a fairly rigid pattern by Roger C. SCHLOBIN, originally under 100pp, but 100-170pp in later years; the final volume was #61, Kurt Vonnegut (1992) by Donald E. Morse, some #s having been skipped. From 1983 a series of more general studies in literary criticism appeared, mostly related to sf/fantasy and especially HORROR, with a number of titles by Michael R. COLLINGS, Darrell SCHWEITZER and others, and including critical anthologies. After Dikty's death in late 1991, his daughter, Barbara Dikty, continued as publisher but, after 8 titles in 1992, shut down operations on 1 March 1993. Most of SH's and FAX COLLECTOR'S EDITIONS nonfiction books and many unpublished manuscripts were sold to BORGO PRESS. SH published 131 books altogether (all but two related to sf), 2 art folios, and a fantasy map; and distributed FAX Collector's Editions. [JC/PN]About the Publisher:"A Requiem for Starmont House" by Robert REGINALD, in SFS 20 (November 1993).See also: SF IN THE CLASSROOM. STAR PRESS GAMMA. STAR PUBLICATIONS COSMOS SCIENCE FICTION. STARR, BILL (? - ) US writer known only for the Farstar and Son sequence of sf adventures: The Way to Dawnworld (1975) and The Treasure of Wonderwhat (1977). The books have something of the quaintness of their titles. [JC] STARR, MARK Gerard KLEIN. STARR, ROLAND Donald S. ROWLAND. STARS The stars have always exerted a powerful imaginative fascination upon the human mind. When they were thought to be mere points of light in the panoply of heaven, it was believed by astrologers that the secrets of the future were written there, and various cultures wove their MYTHOLOGY into the patterns of various constellations. Not until 1718 did Edmond Halley (1656-1742) demonstrate that the stars were not "fixed", and not until the late 1830s were the distances of the nearer stars realistically calculated.It was the religious imagination which first despatched imaginary voyagers so far from Earth. The notion of the stars as suns circled by other worlds was first popularized by Bernard le Bovyer de FONTENELLE in Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes habites (1686; trans J. Glanvill as A Plurality of Worlds 1929). In the 18th century Emanuel SWEDENBORG's visions took him voyaging throughout the cosmos, and other religious mystics followed. C.I. DEFONTENAY, presumably influenced by Fontenelle, undertook to describe another stellar system in some detail in Star (1854; trans 1975), but the first work which took the scientific imagination out into the greater cosmos was Camille FLAMMARION's Lumen (1864; exp 1887; trans 1897). The Pythagorean notion that the Universe revolves around a single central sun is extrapolated in an oddly allegorical manner in William Hope HODGSON's The House on the Borderland (1908).An early SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE of interstellar adventure was Robert W. COLE's The Struggle for Empire (1900), but it was not until the establishment of the SF MAGAZINES that the interstellar adventure playground was extensively exploited by such writers as E.E. "Doc" SMITH, Edmond HAMILTON and John W. CAMPBELL Jr. Hamilton became especially fascinated by the ultimate melodramatic flourish of exploding stars, and was still exploiting its potential in the 1950s. This new familiarity with the stars did not breed overmuch contempt: in all stories where stars were confronted directly, rather than being used simply as coloured lamps to light imaginary worlds, they remained awe-inspiring entities. Their sustained power of fascination is evident in Fredric BROWN's The Lights in the Sky are Stars (1953; vt Project Jupiter 1954 UK), Robert F. YOUNG's "The Stars are Calling, Mr Keats" (1959) and Dean MCLAUGHLIN's The Man who Wanted Stars (fixup 1965), and nowhere more so than in Isaac ASIMOV's classic story of CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH, "Nightfall" (1941), which contradicts Emerson's allegation that "if the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would Man believe and adore and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!". Relatively few sf stories make significant use of scientific knowledge concerning stars and their nature. An exception is Hal CLEMENT's "Cold Front" (1946), which links the behaviour of an odd star to the meteorology of one of its planets. An even odder star, shaped like a doughnut, is featured in Donald MALCOLM's "Beyond the Reach of Storms" (1964). It is, however, quite common to find stars invested with some kind of transcendental significance ( Hyperlink to: METAPHYSICS; RELIGION). Stars are credited with godlike life and INTELLIGENCE in Starchild (1965) and Rogue Star (1969) by Frederik POHL and Jack WILLIAMSON, and a collective quasisupernatural influence is spiced with sf jargon in The Power of Stars (1972) by Louise LAWRENCE. Such metaphysical mysticism is carried to extremes in the first section of If the Stars are Gods (1973; fixup 1977) by Gordon EKLUND and Gregory BENFORD, and the inspiration of sun-worship also plays a minor part in THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE (1974) by Larry NIVEN and Jerry E. POURNELLE. Even HARD-SF stories based on astronomical discoveries are not entirely immunized against residual mysticism; a proper sense of awe is evident in Poul ANDERSON's THE ENEMY STARS (1959), the most notable sf novel featuring a "dead star", and in his "Starfog" (1967) and World without Stars (1967). Work done in ASTRONOMY to clarify the lifecycles of stars helped, some decades ago, to popularize both giant and dwarf stars; more recently it has led to a good deal of sf being written about pulsars ( NEUTRON STARS) as well as, of course, BLACK HOLES, to the extent that both these forms of collapsar ("collapsed star") are now standard implements in the sf writer's toolbox. [BS]See also: COSMOLOGY; LINGUISTICS; LIVING WORLDS. STAR SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE US DIGEST-size magazine. 1 issue, published by BALLANTINE Magazines, Jan 1958. This was an abortive attempt to convert Frederik POHL's STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES into a magazine after its first 3 issues (1953-4) in book format. It reverted to book format at the end of 1958. [BS/PN] STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES ORIGINAL-ANTHOLOGY series (1953-9) ed Frederik POHL, published by BALLANTINE BOOKS. SSFS was the first such series, antedating NEW WRITINGS IN SF by 11 years, and in its example very influential. The series was irregular; after Star Science Fiction Stories (anth 1953), #2 (anth 1953) and #3 (anth 1954) there was a 3-year gap. In Jan 1958 Ballantine attempted to relaunch the title in magazine format, but STAR SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE lasted only 1 issue. Reverting to book format, the series continued with Star Science Fiction Stories #4 (anth 1958), #5 (anth 1959) and #6 (anth 1959). Star Short Novels (anth 1954) was an out-of-series volume. The first 3 vols were of extraordinarily high quality; later issues, while highly competent, were less inspired. Notable stories included "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. CLARKE (#1), "Disappearing Act" by Alfred BESTER (#2), "It's a Good Life" by Jerome BIXBY (#2), "Foster, You're Dead" by Philip K. DICK (#3) and "Space-Time for Springers" by Fritz LEIBER (#4). Star of Stars (anth 1960; vt Star Fourteen UK) collects stories from SSFS. The later Ballantine anthology series STELLAR derived its title from SSFS. [MJE] STARSHIP In sf TERMINOLOGY, a ship capable of travel between the stars - one of the many sf neologisms which have passed into the language. GENERATION STARSHIPS; SPACESHIPS. [PN] STARSHIP Magazine. ALGOL. STARSHORE US magazine, 4 issues Summer 1990-Spring 1991, small- BEDSHEET format, published McAlpine publishing, Virginia; ed Richard Rowland.Though initially receiving national distribution, S was undercapitalized. With a subscription base of only c300, it soon folded, #4 going to subscribers only. Mixed with fiction by new writers were stories by established names including Jack DANN, Mike RESNICK with Lou Tabakow, Kristine Kathryn RUSCH and Charles SHEFFIELD. [PN] STARTLING STORIES US PULP MAGAZINE, 99 issues Jan 1939-Fall 1955, published by Better Publications Jan 1939-Winter 1955, and by Standard Magazines (really the same company) Spring-Fall 1955; ed Mort WEISINGER (Jan 1939-May 1941), Oscar J. FRIEND (July 1941-Fall 1944), Sam MERWIN Jr (Winter 1945-Sep 1951), Samuel MINES (Nov 1951-Fall 1954) and Alexander SAMALMAN (Winter-Fall 1955). Leo MARGULIES was editorial director of SS and its companion magazines during Weisinger's and Friend's editorships. The schedule varied between bimonthly (dated by month) and quarterly (dated by season), with a monthly period in 1952-3.SS was started as a companion magazine to THRILLING WONDER STORIES. Whereas TWS printed only shorter fiction, the policy of SS was to include a complete novel (albeit sometimes very short) per issue; in its early years the cover bore the legend "A Novel of the Future Complete in This Issue". The space left for shorter stories was limited, and was partially filled by "Hall of Fame" reprints - stories from the Hugo GERNSBACK-edited WONDER STORIES and its predecessors. #1 featured Stanley G. WEINBAUM's The Black Flame (Jan 1939; 1948); other contributors in the early years included Eando BINDER, Oscar J. Friend, Edmond HAMILTON, Henry KUTTNER, Manly Wade WELLMAN and Jack WILLIAMSON. Hamilton's "A Yank at Valhalla" (Jan 1941; vt The Monsters of Juntonheim 1950 UK; vt A Yank at Valhalla 1973 dos US) was a particularly vigorous early novel. Early covers were by Howard BROWN and Rudolph Belarski, but from 1940 onwards the covers were mostly by Earle K. BERGEY, the artist whose style is most closely identified with SS and its sister magazines. The characteristic Bergey cover showed a rugged hero, a desperate heroine (in either a metallic bikini or a dangerous state of deshabille) and a hideous alien menace.Under Margulies and, more particularly, under Friend SS adopted a deliberately juvenile slant. This was most clearly manifested in the patronizing shape of the character "Sergeant Saturn", who conducted the letter column and other readers' departments (in TWS and CAPTAIN FUTURE as well as in SS). Many readers were alienated by this, and when Merwin became editor he phased out such juvenilia and gradually built SS into the best sf magazine of the period, apart from ASF. In 1948-9 it featured such novels as WHAT MAD UNIVERSE (Sep 1948; 1949) by Fredric BROWN, Against the Fall of Night (Nov 1948; 1953; rev vt The City and the Stars 1956) by Arthur C. CLARKE and Flight into Yesterday (May 1949; 1953; vt The Paradox Men UK) by Charles L. HARNESS, in addition to novels by Henry Kuttner (mostly SCIENCE FANTASY) and Murray LEINSTER and stories by Ray BRADBURY, Clarke, C.M. KORNBLUTH, John D. MACDONALD, Jack VANCE, A.E. VAN VOGT and others.Merwin left the magazine in 1951 (thereafter becoming a frequent contributor). By this time SS, like other PULP MAGAZINES, was feeling the effect of the increased competition provided by such new magazines as GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION and The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION . Although the standard suffered to a degree, Merwin's successor, Mines, continued to publish interesting material, such as Philip Jose FARMER's The Lovers (Aug 1952; exp 1961) - which helped earn him a HUGO as Most Promising New Writer - and many Vance stories, notably Big Planet (Sep 1952; 1957). The magazine adopted a new cover slogan ("Today's Science Fiction - Tomorrow's Fact") and a more dignified appearance, but it became another victim of the general decline of pulp magazines. In Spring 1955, as the most popular title in its stable, it absorbed TWS and its more recent companion, FANTASTIC STORY MAGAZINE. After 2 further issues it ceased publication, one short of #100. Mines ed an anthology drawn from its pages, The Best from Startling Stories (anth 1954), while a number of its "Hall of Fame" reprints were collected in From off this World (anth 1949) ed Margulies and Friend. A heavily cut and very irregular UK edition was published by Pembertons in 18 numbered issues June 1949-May 1954. A 1st Canadian reprint series ran 1945-6, and a 2nd 1948-51. [MJE]See also: GOLDEN AGE OF SF. STAR TREK US tv series (1966-9). A Norway Production for Paramount Television/NBC. Created Gene RODDENBERRY, also executive prod. Prods Roddenberry, Gene L. Coon, John Meredyth Lucas, Fred Freiberger (season 3). Story consultants Steven Carabatsos, D.C. FONTANA. Writers for seasons 1 and 2 included Jerome BIXBY, Robert BLOCH, Coon, Max EHRLICH, Harlan ELLISON, Fontana, David GERROLD, George Clayton JOHNSON, Richard MATHESON, Roddenberry, Jerry SOHL, Norman SPINRAD, Theodore STURGEON; the only well known writer to work for season 3 was Bixby. Dirs included Marc Daniels, Vincent McEveety, Gerd Oswald, Joe Pevney, Joseph Sargent, Ralph Senensky, Jud Taylor. 3 seasons, 79 50min episodes. Colour.A phenomenon among sf tv series, ST is set on the worlds visited by a giant SPACESHIP, the U.S.S. Enterprise, and on the ship itself. Its crew is on a mission to explore new worlds and "to boldly go where no man has gone before". Though the crew supposedly number several hundred, only a few of them are ever seen at one time, the principal characters being Captain Kirk (William SHATNER), Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Doctor McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Mr Sulu (George TAKEI), Scotty (James Doohan), Ensign Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Lt Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). For fans of written sf, ST can seldom have seemed challenging in any way, as it rarely departed from sf stereotypes, though in its first 2 seasons it was certainly adequate and even quite strong relative to much televised sf. Although several well known sf writers (see above) contributed to the first 2 seasons, their work was invariably rewritten by the show's regular writers; the quality of the scripts had dropped badly by the end of season 3. As a general rule the SPACE-OPERA format was not used with any great imagination. A typical episode would face the crew with ALIEN superbeings (regularly godlike when first encountered - Roddenberry's favourite theme appears to have been flawed GODS), MONSTERS, or cases of apparent demoniac possession - telepathic aliens being the rule rather than the exception in ST's universe. The formula seldom varied. Many adult viewers came to feel that the series was bland, repetitious, scientifically mediocre and, in its earnest moralizing, trite. The effort to please all and offend none was evident in the inclusion of a token Russian, a token Asiatic and, together in the person of actress Nichelle Nichols, a token Black and token woman. The defect in this liberal internationalism was that all these characters behaved in a traditional White Anglo-Saxon Protestant manner: only Spock was a truly original creation.The early 2-part episode The Menagerie, adapted from the original pilot for the series, won a 1967 HUGO for Best Dramatic Presentation, as did Harlan Ellison's City on the Edge of Forever in 1968. The latter is generally thought to be the best of the individual episodes; it posed a moral dilemma which cut more deeply than usual. The original script, which differed slightly from the filmed version, was published in Six Science Fiction Plays (anth 1976) ed Roger ELWOOD.ST was not particularly successful in the ratings. However, it had attracted a hard core of devoted fans, "Trekkies", who made up in passionate enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers. These numbers grew over the years, in part because the series was often replayed, attracting new fans each time. There have been many ST CONVENTIONS, some drawing very large attendances. Perhaps Roddenberry's blend of the mildly fantastic with the reassuringly familiar, and his use of an on the whole very likable cast, attracted viewers precisely because its exoticism was manageable and unthreatening. The Trekkie phenomenon became spectacular.Despite the reservations expressed above, there is no doubt that ST was one of the better sf tv series. Its success, though delayed, was very real and had extraordinary repercussions in the publishing industry. ST ties began with short-story adaptations of individual episodes; James BLISH wrote 11 collections of these 1967-75 (see his entry for details); he also, significantly, published an original novel set in the ST world and featuring ST characters: Spock Must Die * (1970). Another early ST novel was Star Trek: Mission to Horatius * (1968) by Mack REYNOLDS. Soon original ST novels became more important than the novelizations of teleplays. As with DR WHO novels, ST novels are too numerous to be listed here in full, though almost all, having been written by authors who are the subject of individual entries, are listed elsewhere in this encyclopedia. Many ST authors are not hacks and some are distinguished; they include Greg BEAR, Theodore R. COGSWELL, Gene DEWEESE, Diane DUANE, John M. FORD, Joe HALDEMAN, Barbara HAMBLY, Vonda N. MCINTYRE, Peter Morwood (1956- ), Melinda M. SNODGRASS and many others. A series of "fotonovels" - in comic-book style, but using stills from episodes instead of drawings - was inaugurated with Star Trek Fotonovel 1: City on the Edge of Forever * (1977; based on the Harlan Ellison script) and continued for at least 12 issues. There are also GAMES AND TOYS, costumes, models, calendars, puzzles, badges and, of course, MAGAZINES devoted to ST. There are books of blueprints, technical manuals and medical manuals. ST is, in fact, an industry. There is even a thriving trade in ST pornography ( FAN LANGUAGE) in the underground press.The first account of ST published as a book was The Making of Star Trek (1968) written by Stephen E. Whitfield and credited on the cover to Whitfield and Roddenberry. Two more early accounts of ST and its production problems were by David Gerrold: The World of Star Trek (1973; rev 1984) and The Trouble with Tribbles (1973). The latter includes Gerrold's ST script of the same title, together with an account of its production. There have been many books since, including Star Trek Concordance (1976) by Bjo Trimble, Star Trek Compendium (1981; rev 1987) by Allan Asherman, and The Trek Encyclopedia (1988) by John Peel. I am not Spock (1975) by Leonard Nimoy is a cautious account, not very deep, of the actor's relation to the character he played.When it became clear that the fuss over ST was unlikely to die down, NBC commissioned an animated cartoon series, also called Star Trek (1973-4), based on the original series but introducing several new characters, including an orange, tripedal, alien navigator, Arex, and a catlike alien communications officer, M'Rees. The voices were done by the actors from the original series. 1 of the 22 episodes was by Larry NIVEN, and several by Gerrold. This series in turn spawned yet more book adaptations, in the form of the Star Trek Log series by Alan Dean FOSTER (whom see for details), of which 10 appeared 1974-8.Rumours, counter-rumours and press releases about proposed revivals of ST, either on tv or as a feature film, abounded through the 1970s. In the event there were both. The 6 feature-film sequels starring the original cast, were: STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE (1979), STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982), STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK (1984), STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986), STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) and STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991). A seventh movie spin-off, STAR TREK: GENERATIONS (1994), showcases Kirk's heroic death, and briefly features Chekov and Scotty, but is in essence a spin-off from ST's successor, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. This latter series was the first live-action television spin-off from ST. With an all-new cast it became very successful and popular, beginning in 1987 and running for seven seasons, ending in May 1994. Subsequent tv series have been STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE (Jan 1993- ) and STAR TREK: VOYAGER (Jan 1995- ). The Paramount ST machine has not stopped. [PN/JB]See also: OPEN UNIVERSE; SCIENTIFIC ERRORS; SHARED WORLDS; SPACE FLIGHT; TABOOS; WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION. STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE US tv series (1993- ). Paramount. Series creators/executive prods: Rick Berman and Michael Piller. Exec prod Ira Steven Behr. Based upon STAR TREK created by Gene RODDENBERRY.Writers have included Piller, Behr,James Crocker, Paul Robert Coyle, Bill Dial, Jill Sherman Donner, Peter Allan Fields, D.C. FONTANA, Morgan Gendel, Michael McGreevey & Naren Shankar, Joe Menosky, Kathryn Powers, Frederick Rappaport, Sam Rolfe, Alexander Singer, Jim Trombetta, Robert Hewitt Wolfe. Directors have included Corey Allen, Cliff Bole, Avery Brooks, David Carson, James L. Conway, Kim Friedman, Winrich Kolbe, Les Landau, Rob Legato, David Livingston, Paul Lynch, Robert Scheerer, Robert Wiemer. The two-hour pilot was aired in Jan 1993. Since then, 18 one-hour episodes in the first season, and a further 26 in the second. Two seasons to 1994. A third season is current in 1995.In an unusual departure for the STAR TREK franchise (the first live-action tv spin-off was STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and this was the second) ST:DSN is set on a space station (newly occupied by the Federation) orbiting a planet, not a starship. The effect of this more enclosed and stationary world is slightly to emphasize characterisation and personal conflict among the occupants of the station, many of whom do not belong to Starfleet, and to reduce the number of episodes featuring exploration and the discovery of strange alien races and artifacts. However, the station is dramatically situated: it is close to a stable WORMHOLE leading to an unexplored area at the other side of the galaxy, the GammaQuadrant; the planet below is inhabited by the spiritual-natured Bajorans first encountered in a fifth season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Ensign Ro"; the station itself has just been vacated bythe militaristic Cardassians, persecutors of the Bajorans who are still in the vicinity, and as an alien construct lacks the comforts of Federation starbases. The series is set towards the end of the time period covered by Star Trek: The Next Generation.The regular cast are the station commander, Benjamin Sisko, played by black actor Avery Brooks; his non-Starfleet second in command, a Bajoran, Major Kira Nerys, played by Nana Visitor; science officer Jadzia Dax, a Trill (humanoid and internal slug acting in symbiosis, currently female but the previous humanoid partner in the symbiosis was an old man), played by Terry Farrell; the young medical officer Julian Bashir, sometimes aggressive,sometimes naive, usually a womaniser, played by Siddig El Fadil; the non-Starfleet Security Chief, Odo, a shape- shifting alien of unknown origin, played by Rene Auberjonois; Chief of Operations Miles O'Brien, ahuman, played by Colm Meaney; Quark, the opportunistic and greedy Ferengi proprietor of the station's bar and gambling casino, one of an alien race of merchants and entrepreneurs introduced in ST:TNG, played by Armin Shimerman; Jake Sisko, the 14-yr-old son of the commander, played by Cirroc Lofton.As an ensemble the cast is efficient, with Odo and Dax both being very interesting characters, and some good "morphing" effects when Odo changes shape. The "Q"character from ST:TNG makes several appearances. Various sinister beings appear through the wormhole from the Gamma Quadrant, and the last episode of the second season introduced a new alien race, the Jem'Hadar, who live in the quadrant. But the response from STfans to the series has been a little luke warm, and it has not come closeto rivalling the high ratings of its immediate predecessor, in part perhaps because of competition from the other new space-station program, the harder-edged BABYLON-5 (1993- ). Spin-off novels had reached, by early 1995, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine#11: Devil in the Sky (1995) by Greg Cox and John BETANCOURT. There are also young adult book spin-offs. [PN] STAR TREK: GENERATIONS Film (1994). Paramount. Prod Rick Berman; dir David Carson; screenplay Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, based on a story by Berman, Moore and Braga; starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Levar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Malcolm McDowell, James Doohan, Walter Koenig and William SHATNER. 117 mins. Colour.This is the seventh film spin-off from the STAR TREK franchise, though the first actually spun off from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION rather than Star Trek itself. Kirk (Shatner), Chekov (Koenig) and Scotty (Doohan) appear in a twenty-minute prologue, in which Kirk appears to die, and then the story proper takes place at the time Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart) is in command of the Enterprise, 80 years later. The two Enterprise captains meet in a virtual reality world, courtesy of a "temporal nexus", at the end. The story melds elements thoroughly familiar to ST followers: war-crazed Klingons; a mad, genocidal astronomer, Dr Soran (McDowell; and a strange energy field with the power to cocoon those who enter it in re-enactments of their most desired fantasies. In the appealingly silly sub-plot, the android Data (Spiner) inserts an "emotions chip", and has to cope with upwards of 272 different feelings. Kirk dies heroically again. The moral, thumped home in the ST manner, is that it is better to face real life rather than escape into worlds of happy delusion. The film looks good, and makes better than usual use of the wide screen (cinematographer the distinguished John A. Alonzo), but has an air of staleness and predictability. Directed by a tv director, Carson, the film appears designed to counteract the deprivation felt by fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the tv series which had recently completed its seventh and last season. [PN] STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE Film (1979). Paramount. Prod Gene RODDENBERRY, dir Robert WISE, starring the lead players from the STAR TREK tv series, along with Persis Khambatta, Stephen Collins. Screenplay Harold Livingstone, from a story by Alan Dean FOSTER. 132 mins (released with additional material on video and tvat 143 mins). Colour.After more than a decade of rumour and counter-rumour, Star Trek (1966-8) was finally relaunched, and on the big screen at that, with a very big budget. The plot, one of Roddenberry's old favourites about the godlike thing in space, seems to have been based on the original tv episodes The Changeling (1967) by John Meredith Lucas and The Doomsday Machine (1967) by Norman SPINRAD, the latter about an implacable alien force heading straight for Earth, the former about an old Earth space probe that develops autonomous life. The response from Star Trek fandom was disappointing - they warmed more to the cosier, more domestic, more small-screenish movies that followed - but there is much to enjoy in Wise's partly successful effort to meld a story of old mates together again with a story of transcendental union between human and MACHINE, the film ending with a daring sexual apotheosis. At times the film becomes almost too contemplative, especially in the drawn-out, quasimystical finale, but most of all (and traditionally) it is the disparity between the soap-opera ordinariness of the crew and the extraordinary events that surround them that keeps the SENSE OF WONDER visible in the distance but never quite there where you need it.The novelization is Star Trek: The Motion Picture * (1979) by Roddenberry. [PN] STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Film (1982). Paramount. Dir Nicholas Meyer, starring the lead players from the STAR TREK tv series, along with Kirstie Alley, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Ricardo Montalban. Screenplay Jack B. Sowards, based on a story by Harve Bennett and Sowards. 114 mins. Colour.This was the 2nd (and very much cheaper) movie incarnation of Star Trek, the first being STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE (1979). Montalban plays Khan, the villain, resurrected from the tv episode Space Seed (1967), who thinks he is Captain Ahab. Project Genesis, a TERRAFORMING project that can be used as a weapon, is about to be set off by Khan. Kirk meets his alienated son. Chekov is mind-controlled by an alien earwig in his ear. Spock sacrifices himself for the greater good. The whole melodramatic, sentimental mishmash is muddily photographed in flat tv style, but, mystifyingly, many fans liked it better than its much more considerable predecessor.The novelization is Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan * (1982) by Vonda N. MCINTYRE. [PN] STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK Film (1984). Paramount. Dir Leonard Nimoy, starring the lead players from the STAR TREK tv series, along with Robin Curtis, Merritt Butrick, Christopher Lloyd. Screenplay prod Harve Bennett. 105 mins. Colour.This is the 3rd movie in the Star Trek movie series begun with STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE (1979), and it follows directly on from the action of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982) in which Spock died and the Genesis Planet was created. It transpires - the realization is slow - that Spock's body has been recreated (as a rapidly ageing child) by the Genesis Planet, while his soul is sharing McCoy's mind, rendering McCoy schizophrenic. Kirk undertakes to get body and soul together and does so on Vulcan, first outwitting Klingon warlord Kruge (Lloyd). Spock is absent for most of the film, the resulting emptiness being palpable, but Nimoy made up for this by competently directing it. Only complete non-cynics, however, could find other than laughable this saccharine soap opera (rather than SPACE OPERA) in which Kirk loses his son and his ship, Spock is retrospectively canonized, and there is tear-jerking all round.The novelization is Star Trek III: The Search for Spock * (1984) by Vonda N. MCINTYRE. [PN] STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME Film (1986). Paramount. Dir Leonard Nimoy, starring the lead players from the STAR TREK tv series, along with Catherine Hicks. Screenplay Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, based on a story by Nimoy and Bennett. 119 mins. Colour.Returning to Earth on their captured Klingon spacecraft to stand trial for exceeding orders in various ways ( STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK [1984]), Kirk and the crew of the (late) Enterprise are faced with an unidentified probe evaporating the oceans in order, it is somehow deduced, to communicate with humpback whales (now extinct). The only thing to do is to go back to 20th-century San Francisco, get a couple of whales, and use them to talk the probe out of destroying Earth; this they do. It is perhaps unkind to criticize the Star Trek people for their liberalism, but why do they always choose such safe issues? There is some lively humour connected with the crew's attempts to come to grips with 20th-century culture. This was by consensus the most relaxedly watchable of the series to date.The novelization is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home * (1986) by Vonda N. MCINTYRE. [PN] STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER Film (1989). Paramount. Dir William Shatner, starring the lead players from the STAR TREK tv series, along with Laurence Luckinbill. Screenplay David Loughery from a story by Shatner, Harve Bennett, Loughery. 107 mins. Colour.A visibly middle-aged, overweight crew enact a tepid melodrama in which the Enterprise is hijacked by a charismatic Vulcan healer, Sybok (Luckinbill), in search of God, who not unlike the Wizard of Oz proves fraudulent. (False gods are a STAR TREK cliche in both tv and film incarnations.) The film has many anticlimaxes, especially the effortless transit of the supposedly impermeable Great Barrier, and is notable for embarrassingly Californian-style Vulcan therapy-"getting in touch with your own feelings". Shatner's direction has much in common with his acting. After mildly perking up with STAR TREK IV, the film series here plunged again, almost fatally.The novelization is Star Trek V: The Final Frontier * (1989) by J.M. DILLARD. [PN]See also: CINEMA. STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY Film (1991). Paramount. Dir Nicholas Meyer, starring the lead players from the STAR TREK tv series, along with Kim Cattrall, David Warner, Rosana DeSoto, Christopher Plummer, Morgan Sheppard. Screenplay Denny Martin Flinn, Meyer, based on a story by Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal. 109 mins. Colour.After the disaster of STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989), this film may have been a cynical decision to cash in on Star Trek's 25th anniversary and squeeze the last possible dollars out of the box-office. It is a watchable wrap-up of the series, or at least of the series as starring the original and now elderly cast. The story, a metaphor about Russian-US glasnost, deals with the dawn of more peaceful relations between humans and Klingons, with Kirk's dislike of making any such accommodation, and with an unholy alliance of right-wing factions on both sides whose purpose is to sabotage the peace process by assassinating leaders among the peacemakers. Plummer plays the Shakespeare-quoting villain, Chang; strangely the film's title is a mistake; Shakespeare's phrase "the undiscovered country" refers not to the future, as the film has it, but to death. Like all but the first of its predecessors, this low-budget affair has the feel of a blown-up tv episode, but is enjoyably melodramatic.The novelization is The Undiscovered Country * (1992) by J.M. DILLARD. [PN] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION US tv series (1987-1994). Paramount. Series creator/executive prod Gene RODDENBERRY. Co-executive prods Rick Berman, Michael Piller and later Jeri Taylor. Supervising prods include Maurice Hurley and Michael Wagner. Dirs include Corey Allen, Gabrielle Beaumont, Cliff Bole, Rob Bowman, LeVar Burton, David Carson, Richard Colla, Jonathan Frakes, Winrich Kolbe, Les Landau, Paul Lynch, Gates McFadden, Joseph L. Scanlon. Writers include Peter Beagle, Hans Beimler, Brannon Braga, Diane DUANE, Rene Echevarria, D.C. FONTANA, David GERROLD, Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, Joe Menosky, Ronald D. Moore, Michael Piller, Michael REAVES, Naren Shankar, Hannah Louise Shearer, Melinda SNODGRASS, Jeri Taylor, Tracy Torme, Michael Wagner. Seven seasons to 1994. There was a 2hr pilot, then 175 50min episodes.This new Star Trek series was syndicated rather than networked, thus giving the production company a (perhaps) greater creative freedom. Roddenberry, who created the original STAR TREK, cowrote the pilot episode for this new series 20 years later. Although he remained executive prod, after two years he was no longer closely involved with the show; he died in 1991.The series is set 80 years further on than Star Trek. It is introduced with a slight twist on the traditional text: "to boldly go where no one has gone before"; this demonstrated from the outset that ST:TNG would concentrate more on eschewing possible insult than on avoiding split infinitives, and so it has proved. The general likability of the new cast, the fact that their characters seldom conflict with one another (though this became less marked in the last three seasons), the homely moralizing, the absence (usually) of real pain, the appearance of liberalism while avoiding truly sensitive issues (though in season five "The Outcast" raised gay-rights questions): all recall the blandness of its much-loved original - a quality attributed by some to Roddenberry's "bible" ( SHARED WORLDS), a very detailed list of things you can't do in Star Trek scripts - as do many of the story-lines. But, after an uncertain start (tensions on the set and many resignations, including those of writers Gerrold and Fontana; an improvement late in season 1, then a patchy season 2), ST:TNG surprised many by picking up considerable pace and interest in season 3. It is now generally agreed to be superior to its original, whose reruns look ever more amateurish by comparison. There was a slump in season five, but season six was strong; season seven looked tired at the outset, but went out with several strong episodes, even though ST:TNG was by this time competing with STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, the second of Star Trek's live-action tv spin-offs.It could be said that ST:TNG is not really sf at all. That is, the events of any episode seldom if ever arise of necessity from a truly sf idea. The sf elements are, by and large, prettifications used to enliven fables about human ethics, and are essential to the plot only insofar as they are enabling devices to create moral dilemmas. Thus, for example, in the several episodes that are variations on the theme of the immaturity of wanting to be a god, the only necessary sf element is the temporary conferral of godlike power.Much credit for the success of ST:TNG must go to certain cast members, notably UK actor Patrick Stewart, ex-Royal Shakespeare Company, who plays Captain Jean Luc Picard, the Enterprise's captain, with impressive gravitas and vigour. Also very good is Brent Spiner as the ANDROID (and Spock substitute) Data. Most of the rest of the cast are efficient; they include Jonathan Frakes as First Officer Riker, Marina Sirtis as the empath Counsellor Troi, Gates McFadden as the female medical officer Dr Crusher (in season 2 a new medical officer appeared, played by Diana Muldaur), Denise Crosby (season 1 only) as the tough security officer, Black actor LeVar Burton as Geordi LaForge, the blind navigating officer with artificially enhanced vision, Wil Wheaton as the initially teenaged Ensign Crusher (in later seasons he was reduced to occasional guest-starring roles rather than as a regular), and Michael Dorn as the Klingon Lieutenant Worf of the Enterprise (galactic politics having changed in 80 years). Michelle Forbes was introduced in season five as Ensign Ro, a Bajoran, in "Ensign Ro", the episode that was ultimately to prove the starting point of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Notable among occasionally returning guest stars have been Whoopi Goldberg as a bartender and John DeLancie as the roguish, enigmatic "Q", the show's equivalent of Trickster figures like Coyote or Loki or Monkey King, who has featured in some of the better episodes. Many episodes have been released on videotape.In retrospect, ST:TNG must be seen as a great success, at least commercially. It attracted a large and passionate fan following, and with 15 to 20 million US viewers is the highest rated syndicated series in US tv history. One fifth-season episode, "The Inner Light", was awarded a HUGO in 1993. Ironically, the show's very success may have helped kill it off. Paramount initially sold screening rights back at a time when the show's success was very uncertain; had these rights been sold in 1993, it would have been a very different story, and a much more profitable one. The obvious answer was to hope that fannish loyalty was to the whole ST franchise, not just to the program, and to start a new series. This was done with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1993, and again with STAR TREK: VOYAGER in 1995.As with the original "classic" series, there has been a substantial number of spin-off books, beginning with Star Trek, The Next Generation: Encounter at Farpoint * (1987) by David GERROLD, which novelizes episode 1, and reaching, by early 1995 Star Trek: The Next Generation #35: The Romulan Stratagem (1995) by Robert GREENBERGER. Other authors have included A.C. CRISPIN, Peter DAVID, David DVORKIN and Jean LORRAH. A preliminary judgment - that there seems less in this series than in its predecessor to stimulate the creativity of book authors - may be premature. As expected, the series has also spawned comics and magazines. [PN] STAR TREK: VOYAGER US tv series (1995- ). Paramount Network Television. Series creators/executive prods: Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor. Supervising prod (pilot) David Livingston.The two-hour (less advertising space) pilot was aired in Jan 1995, and written by the executive producers. The series is to follow. The 24th-century Federation starship Voyager commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew)-the first female captain to be a regular cast member in the various ST series-is swept away 75,000 light years from home by a godlike being known as The Caretaker, while searching for a group of resistance fighters, the Maquis, which has also been kidnapped. The pilot episode (replaying one of the oldest and tiredest STAR TREK themes) deals with attempts to convince the flawed godlike being that humans have autonomy and can cope very well by themselves, some of the action taking place in a cornball virtual reality resembling a midwest farmhouse. The remaining series is to deal with attempts to shorten the trip back to Federation space, reckoned to take around 70 years at "warp speed", with Federation crew and outlaws working in uneasy harmony.The pilot episode suggests that despite cosmetic changes (the tactical/security officer, otherwise resembling Spock, is an Afro-American Vulcan, or looks like one; the captain is female) the ST universe is much the same as ever, and the routine nature of the script, along with the perfunctory special effects, raise serious questions about how much artistic life there may still be in the ST concept despite its continuing popularity. Other continuing characters are to include Robert Beltran as First Officer Chakota (of native American descent), Roxann Biggs-Dawson as B'Ellana Torres (a half-Klingon), Robert Duncan McNeill-one of the better actors-as Lt. Tom Paris, Jennifer Lien as Kes, Ethan Phillips as Neelix (comic relief), Robert Picardo as Doc Zimmerman, Tim Russ as Tuvok (the black Vulcan Tactical/Security Officer) and Garrett Wang as Ops/Comm Officer Harry Kim. The series is syndicated. This is the third live-action ST tv spin-off, its two predecessors being STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. [PN] STAR WARS Film (1977). 20th Century-Fox. Dir George LUCAS, starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing. Screenplay Lucas. 121 mins. Colour.One of the most financially successful sf films to date, SW is an entertaining pastiche that draws upon comic strips, old serials, Westerns, James Bond stories, The Wizard of Oz, Snow White, Errol Flynn swashbucklers and movies about WWII - the ending, for instance, is lifted from The Dam Busters (1955). Lucas may not have succeeded in unifying these diverse elements into a seamless whole, but SW is always visually interesting. The gratifyingly spectacular special effects and martial music hypnotize the audience into uncritical acceptance of the basically absurd, deliberately PULP-MAGAZINE-style conflict between Good and Evil. Young Luke Skywalker (Hamill) becomes involved in a mission to rescue a princess (Fisher) from the evil head of a decadent GALACTIC EMPIRE.The Empire's military headquarters is the Death Star, the size of a small moon and capable of destroying whole planets. With the help of an old man who possesses supernatural powers (Guinness), a human mercenary (Ford) and his alien sidekick Chewbacca, plus 2 cute ROBOTS, Luke rescues the princess and secures information that enables a group of rebel fighters to destroy the Death Star. He is assisted by a power of good, the "Force", left vaguely ecumenical enough to be equally inoffensive to all. The plot is almost precisely that of a fairy tale. The villainous hit of the film was the Emperor's associate, the asthmatically breathing, masked, black-clad giant, Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones). The film received a HUGO.The special effects are very sophisticated. John Dykstra, in charge of SW's miniature photography, used an automatic matteing system with the help of such technical innovations as a computer-linked effects camera. While the model work was created by US effects men, the live-action settings and effects were created by UK technicians, such as John Barry, production designer, and John Stears, physical effects.SW's influence was great, and not just within the CINEMA. As a direct consequence of its success, many paperback PUBLISHING houses switched their sf lines strongly toward juvenile SPACE OPERA. The novelization, attributed to Lucas but rumoured to be by Alan Dean FOSTER, is Star Wars * (1976). The two sequels are The EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and The RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983). [JB/PN]See also: GAMES AND TOYS; HISTORY OF SF; SCIENTIFIC ERRORS; SWORD AND SORCERY; TABOOS; UFOS. STARZL, R(OMAN) F(REDERICK) (1899-1976) US journalist and writer who between 1928 and 1934 wrote over 20 stories - typical but competent PULP-MAGAZINE adventures and SPACE OPERAS - including 1 with Festus PRAGNELL (whom see for details). [JC] STASHEFF, CHRISTOPHER (1944- ) US writer with a PhD in theatre, a subject he taught at university level; his career began with and has remained almost wholly dedicated to the Rod Gallowglass or Warlock sequence, in order of internal chronology: Escape Velocity (1983), The Warlock in Spite of Himself (1969), CS's first book, and King Kobold (1969; rev vt King Kobold Revived 1984) - the first 2 assembled as To the Magic Born (omni 1986) and all 3 assembled as Warlock to the Magic Born (omni 1990 UK) - The Warlock Unlocked (1982) and The Warlock Enraged (1985) - both assembled with King Kobold as The Warlock Enlarged (omni 1986) and without it as The Warlock Enlarged (omni 1991 UK) - The Warlock Wandering (1986), The Warlock is Missing (1986) and The Warlock Heretical (1987) - the first 2 assembled as The Warlock's Night Out (omni 1988) and all 3 assembled as The Warlock's Night Out (omni 1991 UK) - The Warlock Heretical (1987), The Warlock's Companion (1988) and The Warlock Insane (1989) - all 3 assembled as Odd Warlock Out (omni 1989) - The Warlock Rock (1990),Warlock and Son (1991), Wizard in Absentia (1993), The Witch Doctor (1994) and M'Lady Witch (1994). The sequence follows - with decreasing joie de vivre, and with an increasing sense that lessons of religious import were being conveyed - the zany adventures of Rod Gallowglass and his clumsy ROBOT sidekick, who have found themselves on the planet of Gramarye, where MAGIC works (thinly rationalized as an expression of PSI POWERS); they settle in and flourish. There is some TIME TRAVEL, and many creatures of Faerie are comically rendered. In some extremely similar out-of-series titles, A Wizard in Bedlam (1979), and the Matt Mantrell sequence - comprising Her Majesty's Wizard (1986), The Oathbound Wizard (1994), The Witch Doctor (1994), with further titles projected - CS stuck to his last, but more recently he has ventured into new territory. The Starship Troupers sequence - beginning with A Company of Stars (1991) , We Open on Venus (1994) and A Slight Detour (1994), and with further sequels projected - proposes to follow a theatre company from 23rd-century New York to the stars. It is expected that CS's own love for the theatre will bring life to these volumes. With Bill FAWCETT he has begun to ed a SHARED-WORLD series about the Crafter family of magicians, The Crafters * (anth 1991) and The Crafters #2: Bellsings and Curses * (anth 1992). [JC]Other works: The Gods of War (anth 1992); Sir Harold and the Monkey King* (1993 chap), based on the Incomplete Enchanter sequence by L. Sprague DE CAMP and Fletcher PRATT; Wing Commander: End Run * (1994) with William FORSTCHEN; Dragon's Eye (anth 1994).See also: FANTASY; HUMOUR; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES. STATIC SOCIETIES ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; DYSTOPIAS; UTOPIAS. STATTEN, VARGO John Russell FEARN. STAUNTON, SCHUYLER L. Frank BAUM. STEAD, C(HRISTIAN) K(ARLSON) (1932- ) New Zealand writer whose acerbic, well crafted novels have received considerable praise. Only one is of sf interest: Smith's Dream (1971; rev 1973) depicts a tyrannical DYSTOPIA. [JC] STEAD, W(ILLIAM) T(HOMAS) (1849-1912) UK editor (from 1871) and writer; he edited Borderland, a journal dealing with psychic phenomena, during 1893-97, andfounded and edited Review of Reviews in 1890. He isperhaps most notorious for an article, "Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon" (1885 The Pall MallGazette), which pruriently details the deflowering of a child prostitute, but which didhave some effect in raising the age of consent. If Christ Came toChicago!: A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer(1894) similarly fails to escape unctuousness, but its depiction of a religious co-operative UTOPIA has points of interest. Blastus,the King'sChamberlain: Being the Review of Reviews Annual for 1896 (1895; vtBlastus the King's Chamberlain: a Political Romance1898) is a tale of NEAR FUTURE political intrigue, the second half of which is set in1900. The Despised Sex (1903) is constructedas a report sent - by a visitor to England - to Dione, the queen of Xanthia, a matriarchy in centralAfrica,for whom Britain is a kind of LOST WORLD. Along with John Jacob ASTOR and Jacques FUTRELLE, WTS went down on the Titanic. [JC] STEAKLEY, JOHN (1951- ) US writer. Armor (1984) is a rough-edged example of military sf. Vampire$ (1990) pits a high-tech team of vampire hunters against the serried ranks of the foe. [JC] STEAMPUNK Item of sf TERMINOLOGY coined in the late 1980s, on the analogy of CYBERPUNK, to describe the modern subgenre whose sf events take place against a 19th-century background. It is a subgenre to which some distinguished work attaches, though in no great quantity. There are a number of works of proto-Steampunk, some by UK writers, such as Christopher PRIEST's The Space Machine (1976), in which H.G. WELLS himself plays a RECURSIVE role, and Michael MOORCOCK's Oswald Bastable books, beginning with The Warlord of the Air (1971 US), which are at once a critique and a nostalgic expression of the technological optimism of the Edwardian era. Oddly, though, books like these do not sort well with the kind of book later described as Steampunk, perhaps because in essence Steampunk is a US phenomenon, often set in a London, England, which is envisaged as at once deeply alien and intimately familiar, a kind of foreign body encysted in the US subconscious. Three more works of proto-Steampunk, only borderline sf FABULATIONS, were by US writers: William KOTZWINKLE's Fata Morgana (1977), set in 1871 Paris, Transformations (fixup 1975) by John MELLA, and "Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole" (1977) by Steven UTLEY and Howard WALDROP, in which latter the FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER descends into a SYMMES-style HOLLOW EARTH. These recall not so much the actual 19th-century as a 19th century seen through the creatively distorting lens of Charles DICKENS, whose congested, pullulating 19th-century landscapes-mostly of London, though the industrial Midlands nightmare exposed in Hard Times (1854) is also germane - were the foul rag-and-bone shop of history from which the technological world, and hence the world of sf, originally sprang. Somewhere behind most steampunk visions are filthy coal heaps or driving pistons. It was a vision that also entered the CINEMA, especially through David Lynch, first in Eraserhead (1976) and then in The Elephant Man (1980), and even - inappropriately enough - in much of the mise-en-scene of his sf movie DUNE (1984). Another, rather frivolous Steampunk movie is Young Sherlock Holmes (1985; vt Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear), prod Steven SPIELBERG. Steampunk has entered sf ILLUSTRATION through the work of UK artist Ian MILLER. Macabre sf adventures in a Dickensian London have even entered tv: Steampunk was anticipated several times in the UK tv series DR WHO, notably in The Talons of Weng Chiang (1977). There was also a much earlier proto-Steampunk sf tv series set in a 19th-century USA, the eccentric The WILD, WILD WEST (1965-9).In sf books it was at first largely in the work of 3 Californian friends, James P. BLAYLOCK, K.W. JETER and Tim POWERS, that the Steampunk vision became obvious, the first being Jeter with Morlock Night (1979), in which H.G. Wells's Morlocks travel back in time and invade the sewers of 19th-century London. Powers followed with a historically earlier and even more malign MAGIC-REALIST London in THE ANUBIS GATES (1983; rev 1984 UK), and then Blaylock with HOMUNCULUS (1986). In each of these romances a Dickensian London itself is a major character. All three have written at least one more novel along similar lines: Jeter's Infernal Devices: A Mad Victorian Fantasy (1987), Blaylock's Lord Kelvin's Machine (1992) and - not precisely Steampunk, but evoking some of the same alchemical madness - Powers's On Stranger Tides (1987) and The Stress of her Regard (1989). In most of these works the vision is GOTHIC and the city, despite its horrors, a kind of seedbed where mutant life stirs even in the oldest and deepest parts, the cellars and sewers.Other writers have worked in similar vein, perhaps closer to rationalized fantasy than to sf proper, such as Barbara HAMBLY with her alienated race of vampires co-existing with humans in Those who Hunt the Night (1988; vt Immortal Blood UK) and Brian STABLEFORD with his rationalized werewolves in The Werewolves of London (1990). It is an irony, however, that one of the strongest Steampunk works to date should actually have been written by the prophets of Cyberpunk, William GIBSON and Bruce STERLING, in THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE (1990 UK), set in an alternate 19th-century London even more dystopian than Dickens's (though clearly modelled on it), the imminent collapse of which under the weight of POLLUTION (and reason) is watched and perhaps controlled by an AI evolved from Charles BABBAGE's calculator.It is as if, for a handful of sf writers, Victorian London has come to stand for one of those turning points in history where things can go one way or the other, a turning point peculiarly relevant to sf itself. It was a city of industry, science, technology, commerce and above all, finance (thoughthere was actually more industry in the midlands and the north) where the modern world was being born, and a claustrophobic city of nightmare where the cost of this growth was registered in filth and squalor. Dickens - the great original Steampunk writer who, though he did not write sf himself, stands at the head of several sf traditions - knew all this. [PN]See also: RECURSIVE SF. STEARN, JESS [r] Taylor CALDWELL. STEBER, A.R. House name used 1938-45 on the ZIFF-DAVIS magazines, mostly on AMAZING STORIES, primarily by Raymond A. PALMER, and later, from 1950, by his friend Rog PHILLIPS, who used it in OTHER WORLDS. [PN] STEELE, ADDISON E. Richard A. LUPOFF. STEELE, ALLEN (M.) (1958- ) US journalist and writer whose first story was "Live from the Mars Hotel" for IASFM in 1988; his short fiction has been assembled as Rude Astronauts (coll 1993 UK). He made a considerable impact on the field with his first novel, the NEAR-FUTURE Orbital Decay (1989), set like almost all his work in the vicinity of Earth orbit, where nuts-and-bolts engineering problems are coped with by a refreshingly variegated cast of employees in space. A sequel, Lunar Descent (1991), set on and above the Moon, replays the grit and clanguor of the first novel in a lighter mood. Though AS, like so many of his HARD-SF colleagues, has a damagingly lazy attitude towards characterization and tends to export unchanged into space, decades hence, the tastes and habits of 1970s humanity, he manages to convey a verisimilitudinous sense of the daily round of those men and women who will be patching together the ferries, ships and SPACE HABITATS necessary for the next steps into space. Clarke County, Space (1990), set in one of those habitats, exposes most of AS's weaknesses - cultural provincialism, jerkily melodramatic plotting - without allowing much room for the strengths. [JC]Other work: Labyrinth of Night (1992), about a mission to MARS; Labyrinth of Night (1992 UK); The Jericho Iteration (1994).See also: CLICHES; MUSIC. STEELE, CURTIS House name used by Popular Publications on OPERATOR #5: during Apr 1934-Nov 1935 CS was Frederick C. DAVIS, Dec 1935-Mar 1938 Emile Tepperman, then to the end (Nov/Dec 1939) Wayne Rogers. [PN] STEELE, LINDA (? - ) US writer (not the Linda Steele married to Michael MOORCOCK) whose Ibis: Witch Queen of the Hive World (1985) examines human sexual politics ( FEMINISM) through the perspective of an affair between a human male and a female of an ALIEN hive-like species ( HIVE-MINDS). [JC] STEELE, MORRIS J. [s] Raymond A. PALMER. STEFFANSON, CON House name used by Avon Books. Carter BINGHAM; FLASH GORDON; Ron GOULART. STEIGER, A(NDREW) J(ACOB) (1900-1982) US writer and journalist, a Moscow-based foreign correspondent, whose philosophical novel The Moon Man (1961) involves the lunar thoughts of immortals. [PN] STEINER, K. LESLIE [s] Samuel R. DELANY. STEINMULLER, KARLHEINZ and ANGELA [r] GERMANY. STELLA SCANDINAVIA. STELLAR US ORIGINAL-ANTHOLOGY series published by BALLANTINE BOOKS, ed Judy-Lynn DEL REY. The first issue was just Stellar (anth 1974); subsequent issues were Stellar Science-Fiction Stories #2 (anth 1976), #3 (anth 1977), #4 (anth 1978), #5 (anth 1980), #6 (anth 1981) and #7 (anth 1981). An associated book was Stellar Short Novels (anth 1976), also ed del Rey. As the title suggests, the series was envisaged as a follow-up to STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES ed Frederik POHL 1953-9, also published by Ballantine. However, S, while entertaining, concentrated more on straightforward adventure, with the emphasis on HARD SF, and less on SATIRE than Pohl's series had done, and few stories had the same edge; exceptions were Robert SILVERBERG's "Schwartz Between the Galaxies" (#1), Isaac ASIMOV's HUGO- and NEBULA-winning "The Bicentennial Man" (#2) and "Excursion Fare" (#7) by James TIPTREE Jr. [PN] STELLAR PUBLISHING CORPORATION AIR WONDER STORIES; Hugo GERNSBACK; WONDER STORIES. STEPFORD CHILDREN, THE The STEPFORD WIVES . STEPFORD WIVES, THE Film (1974). Fadsin Cinema Associates/Columbia. Dir Bryan Forbes, starring Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson, Nanette Newman, Patrick O'Neal. Screenplay William Goldman, based on The Stepford Wives (1972) by Ira LEVIN. 115 mins. Colour.In this black but rather crude SATIRE on the role of women in US society, the men of Stepford, a sleepy, attractive Connecticut town, take part in a bizarre conspiracy - devised by an ex-employee of Disney World and in due course discovered by a newly arrived wife (Ross) - to replace their wives with biddable, contented ROBOT duplicates. The finale shows the robot wives of Stepford drifting like the living dead around a vast supermarket and swapping recipes. Despite stodgy direction, this is an above-average PARANOIA movie, comparable in theme if not in charisma with INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) - not least because of Prentiss's lively performance. Though the film's FEMINISM is superficial, it is astonishing that it was attacked as antifeminist. Made-for-tv sequels were Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980), 100 mins, dir Robert Fuest, and The Stepford Children (1987), 104 mins, dir Alan J. Levi. [PN/JB] STEPHENS, CHRISTOPHER P(EYTON) (1943- ) US book-dealer, publisher and bibliographer, founder in 1987 of Ultramarine Publishing Co., Inc., a SMALL PRESS which has concentrated on releasing trade publisher's printed sheets in fine bindings. As a bibliographer, he has compiled checklists (which he regularly revises) on several authors, including Samuel R. DELANY, Philip K. DICK, Thomas M. DISCH, K.W. JETER, Dean R. KOONTZ, Wilson TUCKER, Gene WOLFE and Roger ZELAZNY (all of whom see for details). He has also compiled checklists of some publishers of interest, including the TOR BOOKS Doubles and, together in 1 vol, Kerosina Press and Morrigan Press. [JC] STEPHENSEN-PAYNE, PHIL (1952- ) UK bibliographer who regularly supplied UK publishing data to Locus from 1986 to the beginning of 1994, and who has compiled, often in collaboration with Gordon BENSON Jr, a number of extremely useful "working BIBLIOGRAPHIES" of sf writers (whom see for titles), including Poul ANDERSON (with Benson), Brian W. ALDISS, John BRUNNER (with Benson), C.J. CHERRYH, Philip K. DICK (with Benson), Charles L. HARNESS, Harry HARRISON (with Benson), Robert A. HEINLEIN; C.M. KORNBLUTH (with Benson), Keith LAUMER (with Benson), Anne MCCAFFREY (with Benson), George R.R. MARTIN, Andre NORTON, Keith ROBERTS; Bob SHAW (with Benson and Chris Nelson), Clifford D. SIMAK, Theodore STURGEON (with Benson), James TIPTREE Jr (with Benson), Jack VANCE, James WHITE (with Benson), Gene WOLFE (with Benson), John WYNDHAM and Roger ZELAZNY. [JC] STEPHENSON, ANDREW M(ICHAEL) (1946- ) Venezuelan-born UK writer, electronics design engineer and, as Ames, a magazine and book illustrator. He began publishing sf with "Holding Action" for ASF in 1971, but then published only 1 more story before his first novel, Nightwatch (1977), in which fortifications in space are constructed against an assumed alien INVASION which proves to be a friendly contact. The Wall of Years (1979; rev 1980 US), more typically of a UK writer, describes the destruction of spacetime through interdimensional warfare, and an attempt to set things right again in a lovingly depicted Dark Ages. [JC]See also: HISTORY IN SF. STEPHENSON, NEAL (1959- ) US writer whose first 2 novels- The Big U (1984) and Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (1988)-both convey a strong sense that sf turns are just around the next page, but neither of which can justly be read as sf. The first is a gonzo college caper, told rather in the style of John Landis's film, National Lampoon's Animal House (1978); the second, much more controlled but still shaggy, carries a cast of slightly older but similar characters through a complicated story involving pollution in the waters around Boston, Massachusetts. Neither book adequately signalled the bravura attack and fine control of NS's first sf novel, SNOW CRASH (1992), in which-as it were-the sf content seems to have sopped up the excesses that marred the earlier efforts. Set in a NEAR-FUTURE Los Angeles and elsewhere, and infusing its CYBERPUNK ambience with a cornucopia of data and references to American cultural icons, it depicts a land exorbitantly devolved into private-enterprise enclaves. The plot, whose protagonists are armed skateboard "Deliverators" of pizza and other substnaces, soon moves into VIRTUAL REALITY territory, where the eponymous computer virus turns out not only to affect human brains, but also, perhaps, historically to have been instrumental in the creation of humanity's early religions. [It might be illuminating to compare SNOW CRASH with Leo PERUTZ's Sanct Petri-Schnee (1933; new trans Eric Mosbacher as Saint Peter's Snow 1990 UK), the eponymous virus of which novel engenders religion in humans.] The novel then slides into chase sequences. l Interface (1994), with NS and J. Frederick George writing together as Stephen Bury, is an energetic near-future thriller, somewhat reminiscent of Zodiac, centring on a presidential candidate under the control of a bio-chip, which is connected to online polling software, so that-unless things go wrong-he can instantly spin-doctor his behaviour. The Diamond Age; or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995) awaits a full response, but its examination of NANOTECHNOLOGY seems likely to have as much effect on the field as SNOW CRASH's explosive rendering of Cyberpunk. [JC] STERANKO, JAMES (1938- ) US COMIC-book illustrator, writer and one-time stage magician and escapologist; Jack KIRBY based his comic-book character Mr Miracle - Super Escape Artist (1971) on JS. Influenced early in his career by Kirby, JS rapidly developed a reputation for originality, especially with his work for MARVEL COMICS on the sf comic-book character Nick Fury, first for Strange Tales 1966-8 (no connection with the weird-fiction magazine STRANGE TALES) and then for Nick Fury, Agent of Shield June 1968-Mar 1971, and also for his work on X-MEN and Captain America. Some of his Nick Fury covers - he painted the first 7 covers and drew the stories of #1-#3 and #5 - were revolutionary for comic books of that time in their bold design and utilization of Surrealist themes. JS was not so much an innovator per se as an artist who took a number of techniques hitherto seldom (and haphazardly) used and welded them into a new style in which the design unit became the double-page, not just the single frame. Like Kirby's, JS's narrative technique is strongly cinematic, but his work is more stylized and baroque, and less straightforwardly representational. Considering the height of his reputation, he has done remarkably few comics, but he has been much imitated, by Philippe DRUILLET among others. JS worked occasionally in the sf ILLUSTRATION field, producing 1 cover for AMZ, some work for Infinity, and also paperback covers for Pyramid Books's reprints of The Shadow.In 1970 JS left Marvel to found Supergraphics in order to publish his projected 6-vol history of PULP MAGAZINES and comics. Of this only the first 2 vols have appeared: The Steranko History of the Comics (1970) and The Steranko History of the Comics Volume 2 (1971). He has published and edited a bimonthly tabloid magazine/newspaper called Comixscene 1974-5 and then Mediascene 1974-80; with #41 in 1980 it became a slick movie magazine called Prevue. A planned SWORD-AND-SORCERY comic-book project, Talen, never materialized, although previews and sketches were published 1968. He wrote and drew: a remarkable GRAPHIC NOVEL, Chandler (graph 1976), which can only be described as Chandleresque; a graphic-novel version of the 1981 film OUTLAND (1981-2 Heavy Metal; graph 1982); and a 10pp strip celebrating SUPERMAN in DC COMICS's special #400 of that title (1984). He created a unique series of 3D illustrations (i.e., for use with 3D spectacles) for Harlan ELLISON's"'Repent, Harlequin,' Said the Ticktockman" in The Illustrated Harlan Ellison (graph coll 1978). He is listed among the creative talents currently working under Francis Ford Coppola on a projected movie, Dracula. Among his many awards is the 1970 Best Illustrator of the Year Award. [PN/JG/RT] STEREOTYPES CLICHES; HEROES; PULP MAGAZINES; SCIENTISTS; SEX; SPACE OPERA; SUPERHEROES; VILLAINS. STERLING, BRETT House name of Better Publications, used originally in the magazines STARTLING STORIES and CAPTAIN FUTURE for 5 short Captain Future novels, 3 of which - "The Star of Dread" * (CF 1943), "Magic Moon" * (CF 1944) and "Red Sun of Danger" * (SS 1945; vt Danger Planet 1968) - were by Edmond HAMILTON. 2 BS Captain Future stories by Joseph SAMACHSON are "Days of Creation" * (CF 1944; vt The Tenth Planet 1969) and "Worlds to Come" * (CF 1943). The BS pseudonym was used once more by Hamilton for "Never the Twain Shall Meet" (1946 TWS) and once by Ray BRADBURY for "Referent" (1948 TWS). [PN] STERLING, BRUCE (1954- ) US writer, essayist and editor, whose first published sf was a short story, "Man-Made Self", in an anthology of Texan sf, Lone Star Universe (1976) ed Geo W. PROCTOR and Steven UTLEY. His first novel, Involution Ocean (dated 1977 but 1978), is a memoir of the baroque adventures and moral education of a young man who joins the crew of a whaling ship sailing a sea of dust on a waterless alien planet. Sterling continued in this vein of moralized extravaganza with The Artificial Kid (1980), another first-person FAR-FUTURE picaresque. While its shockproof milieu of glamorized youth, martial arts and omnipotent technology recalls the early work of Samuel R. DELANY, the novel also looks forward to the CYBERPUNK subgenre, whose principles and character BS largely defined in his polemical FANZINE Cheap Truth (c1984-6) which he wrote and edited as by Vincent Omniveritas, and whose representative anthology Mirrorshades (anth 1986) he edited.BS's talent for rhetoric and his pre-eminence as sf ideologue of the 1980s may have distracted attention from his own fiction. In SCHISMATRIX (1985), a 1-vol future HISTORY of the interplanetary expansion and transformation of the human race, he exchanges the fantastic exorbitance of his earlier work for a hard-edged and highly detailed realism closely informed by scientific speculation and extrapolation. Linked with SCHISMATRIX is the Shaper/Mechanist series of short stories included in CRYSTAL EXPRESS (coll 1989), about a spacefaring post-humanity divided into two factions, the Shapers, who favour bio-engineering, and the Mechanists, who prefer prosthetics. The collection contains some of Sterling's best and most fully realized work; he has called it "my favourite among my books". Stories not connected to the sequence have been assembled as Globalhead (coll 1992).Narrated by an anonymous historian above and beyond space and time, SCHISMATRIX is a homage to Olaf STAPLEDON, but all Sterling's novels may be seen as tours conducted around fields of data by protagonists whose main function is to witness them for us. This approach culminates in ISLANDS IN THE NET (1988), a NEAR-FUTURE thriller concerned with the increasing growth and complexity of political power in electronic communication networks. Sterling's fascination with the inner workings of cultures foreign to his own also led to his collaboration with William GIBSON, THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE (1990 UK), an ALTERNATE-WORLD, STEAMPUNK novel in which the successful development of Charles BABBAGE's mechanical COMPUTER in 1821 has produced a world divided between France and an 1850s UK ruled by a radical technocracy under Lord Byron; this UK is depicted as a DYSTOPIA whose visual squalor seems to reflect the influence of Charles DICKENS's apocalyptic vision of an industrialized land. And worse is to come: the eponymous computer is clearly en route to becoming an AI, and may end up ruling the world.Sterling is one of the most globally minded of North American sf writers, seeing civilization as an intricate and unstable mechanism, and pitting the search for equilibrium against our insatiable demands for knowledge and power; such concerns centrally govern the plot of Heavy Weather (1994), set early in the 21st century at a point when the ecological degradation of the planet has generated storm systems of unprecedented ferocity. His main interest continues to be the behaviour of societies rather than individuals, and the perfection of sf as a vehicle for scientific education and political debate. [CG]Other work: The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992), nonfiction about computer crime.See also: ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; CYBORGS; ECONOMICS; END OF THE WORLD; EVOLUTION; GENETIC ENGINEERING; HISTORY OF SF; INTERZONE; ISLANDS; JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD; MUSIC; OMNI; SLIPSTREAM SF; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE HABITATS; TRANSPORTATION; VILLAINS; WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION. STERN, J(ULIUS) DAVID (1886-1971) US writer and newspaper publisher. His Eidolon: A Philosophical Phantasy Built on a Syllogism (1952) tells of a virgin birth. [PN] STERN, PAUL FREDERICK [s] Paul ERNST. STERNBACH, RICK (1951- ) US astronomical and sf illustrator, born in Connecticut. He has worked in sf since 1973, when he sold a cover painting to Analog (Oct 1973), for whom he did 14 covers in all, along with 9 for Gal and 8 for FSF, mostly in the 1970s. He has also done black-and-white interior art for a variety of magazines including IASFM, covers for both paperback and hardcover books, and colour work for Astronomy Magazine. In 1976 he was one of the founders of the Association of Science Fiction/Fantasy Artists (ASFA). RS also worked, from 1977, for Walt Disney Studios and Paramount Pictures. In 1977 he worked on Carl SAGAN's Cosmos tv series. In 1986 he became an illustrator for STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, and is now a senior illustrator and technical consultant for it. He produced The Star Trek, the Next Generation Technical Manual * (1991) with Michael Okuda. Now California-based, he no longer does much book or magazine illustration. He won the HUGO for Best Professional Artist in 1977 and 1978. He is an acknowledged master of the airbrush but also uses ordinary brushes extremely well, particularly with gouache. Though his space art is evocative and his design sense strong, his figures are sometimes awkward. [JG]See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION. STERNBERG, JACQUES (1923- ) Belgian writer. A particularly idiosyncratic author with a keen sense of the absurd, JS built from 1953 a unique body of work, often only tenuously linked to sf, where everyday situations logically degenerate into darkly humorous nightmares. Toi, ma nuit (1956; trans Lowell Bair as Sexualis '95 1967 US) is a witty presentation of the dawn of a new age of sexual excess. Futurs sans avenir (coll 1971; incomplete trans Frank Zero as Future without Future 1974 US) is a representative selection; the title story, an astonishingly bleak DYSTOPIA set at the end of the 20th century, is typical in its progress from grey reality through surreal black wit down to the end of time itself. JS also wrote the script for Alain Resnais's only sf film, JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME (1968). As the 1970s progressed, his work showed less and less attachment to genre devices. [MJ]Other works: La geometrie dans l'impossible ["Impossible Geometry"] (coll 1953); La sortie est au fond de l'espace ["The Way Out is at the Bottom of Space"] (1956), a black comedy set in space and featuring the last human survivors of a bacterial HOLOCAUST; Entre deux mondes incertains ["Between Two Uncertain Worlds"] (coll 1957); La geometrie dans la terreur ["Geometry in Terror"] (coll 1958); L'employe ["The Employer"] (1958); Univers zero ["Universe Zero"] (coll 1970); Attention, planete habitee ["Beware, Inhabited Planet"] (1970); Contes Glaces ["Icy Tales"] (coll 1974); Sophie, la mer, la nuit ["Sophie, the Sea, the Night"] (1976); Le navigateur ["The Navigator"] (1977).See also: BENELUX; FRANCE; PERCEPTION. STETSON, CHARLOTTE PERKINS Charlotte Perkins GILMAN. STEUSSY, MARTI (1955- ) US writer of a short sequence about First Contact. In Forest of the Night (1987) the ALIENS are, as the Blakean title hints, tiger-like, though feathered, and must be protected from settlers on their planet who hope to hunt them down; in Dreams of Dawn (1988) they are crustaceans. MS's heart is in the right place, but the sequence shows signs of making it all much too easy for her young protagonists. [JC] STEVENS, FRANCIS Pseudonym of US writer Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1884-?1939), who wrote 12 quite highly acclaimed fantasies in the period 1917-23; these appeared in The ARGOSY , The ALL-STORY , THRILL BOOK and other early PULP MAGAZINES. A similarity in style and imagery led many readers to believe that FS was a pseudonym of A. MERRITT. The sf content is highest in her DYSTOPIA The Heads of Cerberus (1919 Thrill Book; 1952), in which a grey dust from a silver phial transports its inhalers to a totalitarian Philadelphia of AD2118. Other novels include the LOST-WORLD tale The Citadel of Fear (1918 Argosy Weekly; 1970), Claimed (1920 Argosy Weekly; 1966) in which an elemental being recovers an ancient artefact, and "The Labyrinth" (1918 All-Story), "Avalon" (1919 Argosy), "Serapion" (1920 Argosy) and "Sunfire" (1923 Weird Tales). Short stories include "The Elf Trap" (1919), "Friend Island" (1918) and "Behind the Curtain" (1918). Some of her stories were reprinted in FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES and FANTASTIC NOVELS. [JE]See also: FANTASTIC VOYAGES; GAMES AND SPORTS; WOMEN SF WRITERS. STEVENS, GORDON HITLER WINS. STEVENS, GREG Glen COOK. STEVENS, LAWRENCE STERNE (1886-1960) US artist and illustrator who also signed himself Stephen Lawrence and just Lawrence. He trained as a newspaper artist and did not begin working in the sf PULP MAGAZINES until the early 1940s. Like Virgil FINLAY, though faster and more versatile, he was a master of pen-and-ink stippling; he never achieved Finlay's fame. LSS's finest work may be the dozens of interiors he did for Adventure 1943-54, though his ILLUSTRATIONS for FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES, STARTLING STORIES, SUPER SCIENCE STORIES and THRILLING WONDER STORIES are uniformly excellent. Portfolios include A Portfolio of Illustrations by Lawrence: Reproduced from Famous Fantastic Mysteries Magazine (nd) and A Portfolio of Ilustrations by Lawrence, 2nd Series: Reproduced from Famous Fantastic Mysteries Magazine (nd). In the case of magazine-cover paintings the Stephen Lawrence pseudonym was shared between LSS and his talented son, Peter Stevens (1920- ); interior illustrations by Stephen Lawrence were all the work of LSS. [RB] STEVENS, PETER [r] Lawrence Sterne STEVENS. STEVENS, R.L. [s] Edward D. HOCH. STEVENSON, D(OROTHY) E(MILY) (1892-1973) Scottish writer. In The Empty World (A Romance of the Future) (1936; vt A World in Spell 1939 US) survivors of a great HOLOCAUST must attempt somehow to cope. [JC] STEVENSON, JOHN [r] Nick CARTER. STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (BALFOUR) (1850-1894) Scottish author, best known for works outside the sf field. As a student at Edinburgh University, he abandoned engineering for law, but never practised. He travelled widely, suffered most of his life from tuberculosis, and settled in Samoa in 1890. His early novel, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886; the usual vt from 1896 on being The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), shows the influence of a Calvinist youth on a hot, romantic temperament. An early version (which he scrapped), resulting from a nightmare, had an evil Jekyll using the Hyde transformation as a mere disguise. The published version has echoes of the case of Deacon Brodie, hanged in 1788 (and also the subject of the play Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life [1880; rev 1889] by RLS and W.E. Henley [1849-1903]), as well as of James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), not to mention psychological theories that were then current. It is a Faustian moral fable which takes the form of a tale of mystery and HORROR. It precedes Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), which in some respects resembles it, by five years, and is the prototype of all stories of multiple personality, transformation ( APES AND CAVEMEN) and possession; in some aspects it is also a tale of drug dependency.The plot takes the form of a spiral which moves gingerly into the heart-of-darkness of the climax, when the already dead Jekyll's written confession of his terrible fall is discovered and presented to readers as the last chapter of the text. Years before the tale begins, Jekyll (whose name RLS pronounced with a long "e") has begun to use drugs to dissociate his libertine side (cf Freud's "id") from his normal self. The evil self that surfaces, Hyde, in whose person (or persona) Jekyll enjoys unspecified depravities (we are given instances only of rage, brutality and murder), is less robust at first than the full man. But spontaneous metamorphoses into an increasingly dominant Hyde begin to occur, and after a temporary intermission larger and larger doses are needed for the "recovery" of Jekyll. Eventually supplies run out and, cornered, Hyde commits suicide. The symbolic physical changes (Hyde is young, stunted, nimble and repulsive) seem today unconvincing melodrama, and the silence about vices other than cruelty seems prudish, but the psychological power of the writing, including Jekyll's agonies, is patent. The story has been filmed many times ( DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE) and has been deeply influential on the development of the theme of PSYCHOLOGY in sf.RLS wrote a deal of other stories with fantastic or supernatural elements, many to be found in New Arabian Nights (coll in 2 vols 1882); the contents of the 1st vol initially appeared in the magazine London in 1878 under the general title Latter-Day Arabian Nights, and were later reprinted as The Suicide Club, and The Rajah's Diamond (coll 1894) ( CLUB STORIES). Others appear in: More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter (coll 1885) by RLS with his wife Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson; The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables (coll 1887), which contains "Thrawn Janet", Markheim (1886 Cornhill; 1925 chap), a good-angel story with a twist, Will o' the Mill (1886; 1901 chap US) and "Olalla"; Island Nights' Entertainments (coll 1893), which contains The Bottle Imp (1891 Black and White; 1896 chap US; vt Kaewe's Bottle 1935 chap UK); Tales and Fantasies (coll 1905), which includes The Misadventures of John Nicholson (1887 Cassell's Christmas Annual; 1889 chap US) and The Body-Snatcher (1884 Pall Mall Christmas Extra; 1895 chap US); and Fables (coll 1914). Many further pamphlets containing RLS tales were published during his lifetime and after; of interest are The Waif Woman (written 1892; 1914 Scribner's Magazine; 1916 chap), When the Devil was Well (1921 chap US) and Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Highlands (1923 chap US). Though it has no fantastic elements, Prince Otto (1885) is an interesting precursor of the RURITANIAN tale. [DIM/JC]Other works: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Other Fables (coll 1896), and many other collections whose titles feature Jekyll and Hyde; The Short Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson (coll 1923 US); Two Mediaeval Tales (coll 1930 chap US); The Tales of Tusitala (coll 1946); Great Short Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson (coll 1951 US); The Body-Snatcher and Other Stories (coll 1988 US); The Complete Shorter Fiction (coll 1991); several series of collected works.About the author: Frank Swinnerton's Robert Louis Stevenson (1915), though venomous, is a necessary purgative for the early adulation; the numerous subsequent studies are more balanced. Of special interest is Definitive Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Companion (1983) by H.M. Geduld.See also: BIOLOGY; DEVOLUTION; GOTHIC SF; HISTORY OF SF; The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ; MEDICINE; METAPHYSICS; PARANOIA; PREDICTION; SCIENTISTS; SEX; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES; THEATRE; VILLAINS. STEVEN SPIELBERG'S AMAZING STORIES AMAZING STORIES. STEWART, ALEX (1958- ) UK editor and writer who began publishing sf with "Seasons Out of Time" for Interzone in 1982, but who has been primarily active as an editor since.Solohe ed Arrows of Eros: Unearthly Tales of Love andDeath(anth 1989); with Neil GAIMAN he ed the SHARED WORLDanthology,Temps* (anth1991), featuring a clatch of SUPERHEROES in modern Britain whom thegovernment occasionally drafts for superhero work; the sequel, EuroTemps* (anth 1992) was ed solo by AS. [JC] STEWART, FRED MUSTARD (1936- ) US writer who has specialized in psychological HORROR novels at the edge of sf and/or fantasy, like The Mephisto Waltz (1969), filmed in 1971. Star Child (1974), arguably, and The Methuselah Enzyme (1970), certainly, are sf. [JC] STEWART, GEORGE R(IPPEY) (1895-1980) US writer who obtained his PhD from the University of California in 1922, later became professor of English there, and concentrated his attention - through novels, literary studies, popular history, etc. - on the Pacific Edge of the USA. His only sf novel, EARTH ABIDES (1949), is set in California, and tells of the struggle to survive and rebuild after a viral plague has wiped out most of humanity. The protagonist, Isherwood Williams, lives for many decades after the DISASTER, breeding children with one of his rare fellow survivors, and watching the long night begin as his descendants gradually lose all sense of the civilization he represents; but the Earth abides. The sense of requiem and rebirth promulgated in the novel is rendered all the more complex for readers aware of the implications of Isherwood's nickname, Ish, a direct reference to the historic Ishi, a California Indian who became famous in the early years of the century as the last living representative of his tribe, just as Ish is one of the last living representatives of the civilization which has destroyed his namesake's world. Ishi in Two Worlds (1961) by Theodora Kroeber (1897-1979), Ursula K. LE GUIN's mother, serves as a telling complement. One of the finest of all post- HOLOCAUST novels, GRS's superb elegy was the first winner of the INTERNATIONAL FANTASY AWARD. [MJE/JC]See also: GENRE SF; HISTORY OF SF; PASTORAL; SHARED WORLDS; SOCIOLOGY. STEWART, MICHAEL 1. UK writer and economist (1933- ). With Peter JAY (whom see for details) he wrote Apocalypse 2000: Economic Breakdown and the Suicide of Democracy, 1898-2000 (1987).2. UK writer (1945- ), most of whose novels are medical thrillers, although Monkey Shines (1983), filmed by George A. ROMERO as MONKEY SHINES (1988), uses the sf premise that a monkey may have her intelligence successfully augmented through the injection of human genetic material; the experiment ends tragically. Other thrillers with sf elements include Far Cry (1984), Blindsight (1987), Prodigy (1988), which also includes elements of occult horror,Birthright (1990), in which a feral child turns out to be a Neanderthal, and is threatened with human exploitation, Belladonna (1992) and Compulsion (1994). [JC]See also: ANTHROPOLOGY; APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD). STEWART, RITSON (? - ) UK writer who, with Stanley Stewart (their relationship, along with everything else about them, is unknown), published The Professor's Last Experiment (1888), in which a scientifically superior Martian arrives on Earth but is captured by a vivisectionist, who chops off the visitor's wings. [JC] STEWART, SEAN (1965- ) US writer long in Canada but resident in the US again from 1995, whose first novel, Passion Play (1992), depicts an American governed by the fundamentalist religious right. The story is told by a female private eye in standard noir style, down to the sequence of interviews with suspects which make up the centre of the narrative; but although there are fewer surprises at this level than perhaps desirable, SS conveys throughout a sense of revisionist scrutiny of the conventions he follows. This scrutiny is very much more evident in Nobody's Son (1993), a fantasy set almost entirely after the hero has won the princess. Resurrection Man (1995) is also a fantasy. [JC] STEWART, STANLEY [r] Ritson STEWART. STEWART, WENDELL [s] Gordon EKLUND. STEWART, WILL Jack WILLIAMSON. STICKGOLD, BOB (1945- ) US writer and neurobiologist whose first sf novel, Gloryhits (1978) with Mark Noble, deals with a recombinant-DNA disaster. His second, The California Coven Project (1981), similarly exploits his professional knowledge in a NEAR-FUTURE venue. [JC] STIEGLER, MARC (? - ) US writer who began publishing his characteristic HARD-SF stories with "The Bully and the Crazy Boy" for ASF in 1980, and whose short work, assembled in The Gentle Seduction (coll 1990), promulgates technological solutions to neatly couched problems. David's Sling (1984) applies the same philosophy to problems of NEAR-FUTURE political stress, as East and West come close to blows through lack of information-flow. Valentina: Soul in Sapphire (fixup 1984) with Joseph H. DELANEY (whom see for details) has a similar bent. [JC] STILLMAN, RON Pseudonym of the unidentified author, presumably US, of the Tracker military-sf series starring a USAF pilot and genius whose inventions make his blindness irrelevant; the stories are told in a maliciously exaggerated parody of the conventions of this sort of fiction. The sequence so far comprises Tracker (1990), Green Lightning (1990), Blood Money (1991), Black Phantom (1991), Firekill (1991) and Death Hunt (1991). [JC] STILSON, CHARLES B(ILLINGS) (1880-1932) US journalist and editor, active in the early decades of the century with serialized novels and some stories for the Frank A. MUNSEY magazines. His Edgar Rice BURROUGHS-inspired sf/fantasy trilogy, Polaris of the Snows (1915-16 All-Story; 1965), Minos of Sardanes (1916 All-Story; 1966) and Polaris and the Immortals (1917 All-Story as "Polaris and the Goddess Glorian"; 1968), features the improbably durable Tarzan-like Polaris Janess, who spends his Antarctic childhood killing polar bears [sic] by hand and as an adult enjoys adventures in a LOST-WORLD colony of Greeks and with technologically advanced survivors of ATLANTIS. "The Sky Woman" (1920 All-Story) concludes with the tragic death of a Martian woman borne to Earth in a meteorite. The more sophisticated "Dr Martone's Microscope" (1920 All-Story) is a homage to Fitz-James O'BRIEN's "The Diamond Lens" (1858) and Ray CUMMINGS's "The Girl in the Golden Atom" (1919), both of which are mentioned by name. At the same time it invokes a surreptitious sexuality: the doctor's microscope has been used for voyeuristic purposes. At his best CBS was a writer who transcended PULP-MAGAZINE formulae. [RB/JC]Other works: The Island God Forgot (1922); The Ace of Blades (1924); A Cavalier of Navarre (1925); Sword Play (1926); The Seven Blue Diamonds (1927).See also: ESCHATOLOGY. STIMSON, F.J. [r] Robert GRANT; John Boyle O'REILLY. STINE, G(EORGE) HARRY (1928- ) US writer who was for many years best known for work published under his pseudonym, Lee Correy, but who in the 1980s began increasingly to write under his own name, though his popularizing nonfiction about space travel and satellites had always been released as by GHS, as was his first story, "Galactic Gadgeteers" for ASF in 1951. As Correy, his best-known sf tale is "And a Star to Steer Her By" (1953), to which his first novel, a juvenile, Starship through Space (1954), is a sequel. There soon followed another juvenile, Rocket Man (1955), and Contraband Rocket (1956), about amateurs launching a SPACESHIP. GHS's preoccupation with space travel has never, in fact, faltered, and although many years passed before his next novel as Correy, his urgent advocacy of the space programme remained as attractively fresh as ever. Star Driver (1980), Shuttle Down (1981), Space Doctor (1981), Manna (1984) and A Matter of Metalaw (1986), all as Correy, variously work to increase the sense of the reality of space, an agenda perhaps less evident in The Abode of Life * (1982), a STAR TREK tie. Under his own name, GHS's fiction has been less ambitious, being restricted mainly to the NEAR-FUTURE Warbots sequence in which humans and MACHINES clashingly interface as the US Robot Infantry fights evil everywhere: Warbots (1988), Warbots #2: Operation Steel Band (1988), #3: The Bastaard [sic] Rebellion (1988), #4: Sierra Madre (1988), #5: Operation High Dragon (1989), #6: The Lost Battalion (1989), #7: Operation Iron Fist (1989), #8: Force of Arms (1990), #9: Blood Siege (1990), #10: Guts and Glory (1991),#11: Warrior Shield (1992) and Judgment Day (1992). A second series, the Starsea Invaderssequence comprising First Action(1993) and Second Contact (1994) is not dissimilar.Nonfiction works of sf interest include Earth Satellites and the Race for Space Superiority (1957), Rocket Power and Space Flight (1957), The Third Industrial Revolution (1980), Shuttle into Space: A Ride in America's Space Transportation (1978), The Space Enterprise (1980), Space Power (1981), Confrontation in Space (1981), The Hopeful Future (1983), The Silicon Gods (1984) and Handbook for Space Colonists (1985). [JC] STINE, HANK (1945- ) US writer, born Henry Eugene Stein, whose Season of the Witch (1968) interestingly blends sf and erotica in the story of a man biologically transformed into a woman as a punishment for rape and murder, but who eventually finds her/his true role and contentment as a transsexual. Other sf novels include Thrill City (1969), set in a city devastated by WWIII, and a novelization tied to the tv series The PRISONER , A Day in the Life * (1970). HS was editor of GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION for 2 issues in 1979. [MJ]See also: PSYCHOLOGY; SEX. STINGRAY UK tv series with animated puppets (1964-65). AP Films with ATV/ITC. Created Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Prod Gerry Anderson. The writers were the Andersons (3 episodes), Alan Fennell, Dennis Spooner. 39 25min episodes. Colour.The 3rd of the SuperMarionation puppet sf series for children ( Gerry and Sylvia ANDERSON for details) and the first in colour, S was also one of the better. Handsome but irascible Troy Tempest pilots the atomic submersible Stingray for WASP (World Aquanaut Security Patrol) and is involved in a love triangle with Marina, lovely but mute daughter of an undersea emperor, and Atlanta, wistful daughter of WASP's crusty commander. Most weeks saw somewhat repetitive undersea menaces defeated, primarily those associated with the evil but incompetent Titans, an "aquaphibian" race. The miniature sets were good (special effects Derek Meddings). Some episodes were later cobbled together as "films" which probably never saw theatrical release but were shown abroad as tv features. One was Invaders from the Deep (1981), made up from the episodes Hostages of the Deep, Emergency Marineville, The Big Gun and Deep Heat, all written by Fennell. [PN] STIRLING, S(TEPHEN) M(ICHAEL) (1954- ) French-born Canadian writer who began publishing work of genre interest with Snowbrother (1985 US), the 1st vol of the Fifth Millennium fantasy sequence, which continued with The Sharpest Edge (1986 US) with Shirley Meier (1960- ), The Cage (1989) with Meier, and Shadow's Son (1991) with Meier and Karen Wehrstein. It was, however, with his 2nd series, the ALTERNATE-WORLD Draka sequence - Marching through Georgia (1988), Under the Yoke (1989) and The Stone Dogs (1990) - that SMS came to notice because of the considerable violence (undeniable) and right-wing convictions (apparent). In an ALTERNATE-WORLD 20th century generated in part by the success of Charles BABBAGE's Difference Engine, a group of British loyalists, having previously escaped the consequences of the American Revolution by emigrating to South Africa, have established there a racist feudalism, the Domination of Draka, which soon comes to dominate the entire continent. In the first volume the start of WWII sees Draka allied with the USA against the Nazis, and winning a crushing victory against the German hordes in Soviet Georgia; subsequently, slavery is extended to newly conquered territories. This nightmare (which SMS presents with seeming affection) continues in subsequent volumes, with the Domination seemingly ineradicable and a post-war conflict between the Drakans (who have mastered GENETIC ENGINEERING) and the USA (expert in COMPUTERS) extending into space.SMS has also contributed to Larry NIVEN's Man-Kzin Wars SHARED-WORLD anthologies, with work in Man-Kzin Wars II * (anth 1989), Man-Kzin Wars III * (anth 1990) and Man-Kzin Wars IV * (anth 1991), plus a novel in the sequence, The Children's Hour * (1991) with Jerry POURNELLE. Also with Pournelle, to whose CoDominion sequence the tale belongs, he wrote Go Tell the Spartans (1991) about Falkenberg, the series' main protagonist. Other novels include The Forge (1991),The Hammer (1992), The Anvil (1993) and The Steel (1993), all with David A. DRAKE, the first volumes of The General, a military series. SMS has also ed Fantastic World War II (anth 1990) and The Fantastic Civil War (anth 1991), both with Martin H. GREENBERG, Charles G. WAUGH and Frank McSherran Jr, and Power (anth 1991). [JC]See also: CANADA; WAR. STIRRING SCIENCE STORIES US PULP MAGAZINE, changing to BEDSHEET-size for #4. 4 issues Feb 1941-Mar 1942, published bimonthly by Albing Publications for #1-#3, then by Manhattan Fiction Publications for the final abortive revival 9 months later; ed Donald A. WOLLHEIM. The companion magazine to COSMIC STORIES, SSS was produced under similar adverse financial conditions: writers were promised payment only if SSS were a success. 3 issues carried covers by artist Hannes BOK. SSS featured many stories by FUTURIANS, including James BLISH and C.M. KORNBLUTH (who contributed various stories under at least 3 pseudonyms), and printed Damon KNIGHT's first published story, "Resilience". SSS was presented as two magazines in one: the second half was separately titled Stirring Fantasy Fiction, and came complete with its own editorial and readers' departments. [MJE/PN] STITH, JOHN E(DWARD) (1947- ) US writer and software engineering manager who began to publish sf with "Early Winter" for Fantastic in 1979. His first novel, Scapescope (1984) - HARD SF like all his work-uses his work experience at the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex to extrapolate conditions in that location two centuries hence. Memory Blank (1986) places a classic sf protagonist - the hero with amnesia - on an L-5 orbital colony ( LAGRANGE POINT). Death Tolls (1987) is a detective mystery set on a terraformed MARS (see also TERRAFORMING), and Deep Quarry (1989), set on a planet far from the Solar System (to which JES had previously restricted himself), pits a private eye against various mysteries in a hard-boiled style. More impressive than any of these is Redshift Rendezvous (1990), set on a FASTER-THAN-LIGHT starship travelling through a version of HYPERSPACE in which the speed of light is so low (22mph [35kph]) that its passage is visible. Within this intriguingly presented environment, a murder mystery, a hijack and other events occur; but the appeal of the novel lies in the playing-out of the concept - or thought experiment - at its heart. Both Manhattan Transfer (1993), in which an alien force matter-transmits the island elsewhere for reasons unknown, and Reunion on Neverend (1994) continue to demonstrate a growing facility and storytelling energy. [JC]See also: IMAGINARY SCIENCE STOCKBRIDGE, GRANT House name used by Popular Publications, especially in The SPIDER . Most if not all the GS stories in The Spider were by Norvell W. PAGE. It has been suggested that Frank Gruber, Reginald T. Maitland and Emil Tepperman also used this pseudonym. [PN] STOCKTON, FRANK R(ICHARD) (1834-1902) US author and editor. He worked on Scribner's Magazine before being assistant editor of ST NICHOLAS MAGAZINE 1873-81. It was during this period, while writing for children, that he developed the combination of humour and fantasy featured in such works as Tales out of School (coll 1875), which includes "How Three Men Went to the Moon", and The Floating Prince and Other Fairy Tales (coll 1881). His numerous short stories appeared in over 20 collections, of which several were composite volumes. His better works include "The Lady or the Tiger?" (1882), a classic puzzle story, "The Transferred Ghost" (1882) and its sequel "The Spectral Mortgage" (1883), and his sf story "A Tale of Negative Gravity" (1884). Among other short sf stories were "The Tricycle of the Future" (1885) and "My Translataphone" (1900; reprinted in The Science Fiction of Frank R. Stockton [coll 1976] ed Richard Gid Powers).Later, when FRS turned to novels, he continued to use sf themes occasionally, though his humorous style remained the most prominent feature. In The Great War Syndicate (1889) a naval WAR between the UK and USA is resolved when the British see the advanced weaponry arrayed against them. The Adventures of Captain Horn (1895) is a LOST-WORLD novel. The Great Stone of Sardis (1898), set in 1947, culminates in the discovery that the Earth is a gigantic diamond with a relatively thin crust of surface soil. The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander (1899) lightly recasts the Wandering Jew theme.FRS was influential on John Kendrick BANGS and other humorous fantasists and is regarded as a forerunner of O. Henry (1862-1910) in his use of the trick ending. His complete works appear in The Novels and Stories of Frank R. Stockton (23 vols 1899-1904). A posthumously written collection, The Return of Frank R. Stockton (coll 1913), "transcribed" by the medium Miss Etta de Camp, is surprisingly good and stylistically recognizable, though death has clearly impaired his vision. [JE]Other works: Collections with at least some sf/fantasy material include Ting-a-Ling (coll 1879); The Lady or the Tiger? and Other Stories (coll 1884); The Christmas Wreck and Other Stories (coll 1886); The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales (coll 1887); A Borrowed Month and Other Stories (coll 1887 UK); Amos Kilbright: His Adscititious Experiences, with Other Stories (coll 1888); The Stories of the Three Burglars (coll 1889); The Rudder Granges Abroad and Other Stories (coll 1891); The Great Show in Kobol-Land (1891); The Clocks of Rondaine and Other Stories (coll 1892); The Watchmaker's Wife and Other Stories (coll 1893); Fanciful Tales (coll 1894); A Chosen Few (coll 1895); A Story-Teller's Pack (coll 1897); Afield and Afloat (coll 1900); John Gayther's Garden, and the Stories Told Therein (coll 1902); The Queen's Museum, and Other Fanciful Tales (coll 1906); The Magic Egg and Other Stories (coll 1907); The Lost Dryad (1912 chap); The Fairy Tales of Frank Stockton (coll 1990).See also: UNDER THE SEA. STOKES, MANNING LEE (1911-1976). US writer whose work of sf interest was confined to pseudonymous contributions to various series. As Nick Carter, he wrote The Red Rays (1969) in the Nick Carter series; as Jeffrey Lord, he wrote #1 through #8 of the Richard Blade series: The Bronze Axe (1969), The Jade Warrior (1969), Jewel of Tharn (1969), Slave of Sarma (1970), Liberator of Jedd (1971), Monster of the Maze (1972), Pearl of Patmos (1973) and Undying World (1973); and as Ken Stanton he wrote two Aquanauts titles: Operation Sea Monster (1974) and Operation Mermaid (1974). [JC] STOKES, SIMPSON F. Dubrez FAWCETT. STOLBOV, BRUCE (? - ) US writer whose post- HOLOCAUST novel, Last Fall (1987), describes the dilemma faced by a wood-dwelling pacifistic enclave of survivors when gun-bearing intruders arrive. The tale is notable for the quiet warmth of its depiction of a renewed natural world. [JC] STONE, CHARLOTTE Maxim JAKUBOWSKI. STONE, LESLIE F(RANCES) (1905-c1987) US writer who began publishing sf with "Men with Wings" for Air Wonder Stories in 1929, and was active in the field for the next 8 years, publishing at least 17 stories. Her 2 sf books are When the Sun Went Out (1929 chap), a FAR-FUTURE tale which appeared in Hugo GERNSBACK's Science Fiction series, and Out of the Void (1929 AMZ; 1967), a SPACE OPERA. "Across the Void" (1930 AMZ), a sequel to the latter, attained magazine publication only. [JC/PN]See also: LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; WOMEN SF WRITERS. STONG, PHIL(IP DUFFIELD) (1899-1957) US novelist and editor, author of the thrice-filmed State Fair (1932). His The Other Worlds (anth 1941; vt 25 Modern Stories of Mystery and Imagination 1942 US) was the first important sf ANTHOLOGY. Its 25 stories, about half sf, half horror, were mostly from the PULP MAGAZINES, not previously regarded as a proper source of material (of sf at least) for respectable hardcover books. [PN] STOREY, ANTHONY (1928- ) UK writer, formerly a rugby player, brother of the novelist David Storey (1933- ) and author of a SATIRE-drenched trilogy-The Rector (1970), The Centre Holds (1973) and The Saviour (1978) - which deals with the traumas surrounding the announced birth of a child its mother claims to be the MESSIAH, and the 1980s upheavals centring on the ambivalent effect of the new Jesus upon an unfit world. [JC] STOREY, RICHARD [s] H.L. GOLD. STORM, BRIAN Brian HOLLOWAY. STORM, JANNICK [r] DENMARK. STORM, MALLORY Paul W. FAIRMAN. STORM, RUSSELL Robert Moore WILLIAMS. STORM PLANET PLANETA BUR. STORR, CATHERINE (1913- ) UK doctor and writer, for many years a psychotherapist, since 1963 an author of journalism, children's books - most famously Marianne Dreams (1958; vt The Magic Drawing Pencil 1960 US), in which physical and mental malaises are incarnated in a fantasy world - and an sf novel, Unnatural Fathers (1976), in which the success of an experiment to make men capable of child-bearing causes great upheavals in a NEAR-FUTURE UK. [JC/BS]Other works for children: Rufus (1969); The Adventures of Polly and the Wolf (1970); Thursday (1972). STORY, JACK TREVOR (1917-1991) UK writer who remains best known for his first novel, The Trouble with Harry (1949), not sf, which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock (1889-1980) in 1955. The rumours that he wrote several of the Volsted GRIDBAN sf novels are unverified, but certainly he did produce many pseudonymous books over the first decade or so of his career. His openly acknowledged work included non-sf - but remarkable - tales for the Sexton Blake Library and several novels which used sf components to make their points about the decline of England and the loss of youth, including Hitler Needs You (1970), One Last Mad Embrace (1970), Little Dog's Day (1971), which is a genuine sf DYSTOPIA, the surrealistic The Wind in the Snottygobble Tree (1971), Morag's Flying Fortress (1976), which is a borderline novel about sexual obsession, and Up River (1979; vt The Screwrape Lettuce 1980), in which an appalling aphrodisiac devastates the UK while the secret police, unnoticed, grab power. [JC] STORY OF MANKIND, THE Irwin ALLEN. STORY-PRESS CORPORATION BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE. STORYTELLER UK pocketbook magazine published by Liverpolitan, Birkenhead. The front cover bears the variant title International Storyteller, while the spine and title page read Storyteller. #3 was an all-sf issue, all stories (apart from Chris BOYCE's first) by writers unknown in sf; it is dated 1964, no ed named. Other issues were not sf. [PN] STOUT, REX (TODHUNTER) (1886-1975) US writer, best known for his Nero Wolfe detective novels, beginning with Fer-de-Lance (1934) and continuing into the 1970s. Under the Andes (1914 All-Story Magazine; 1984) describes, in a style very unlike his deft mature drawl, an underground LOST WORLD of dwarf Incans. In The President Vanishes (1934), published anon, the disappearance of the US President causes a NEAR-FUTURE crisis. [JC]See also: DIME-NOVEL SF. STOVER, LEON E(UGENE) (1929- ) US editor and writer, professor of ANTHROPOLOGY at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he also taught sf courses, and science editor of AMZ 1967-9. He was most active in sf in collaboration with Harry HARRISON, editing with him Apeman, Spaceman: Anthropological Science Fiction (anth 1968), and writing with him Stonehenge (1972), a historical novel in which refugees from ATLANTIS - here rather conventionally identified as the Mediterranean island, Thera (Santorini), which exploded in Mycenaean times - help build the eponymous megalith. With Willis E. MCNELLY he ed Above the Human Landscape: An Anthology of Social Science Fiction (anth 1972). He was founder and first chairman of the JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD.LES's critical studies perhaps represent him at his most interesting. La science-fiction americaine: essai d'anthropologie culturelle ["American Science Fiction: An Essay in Cultural Anthropology"] (1972 France) was based on one of his courses. Ostensibly a RECURSIVE tale, The Shaving of Karl Marx: An Instant Novel of Ideas, after the Manner of Thomas Love Peacock, in which Lenin and H.G. Wells Talk about the Political Meaning of the Scientific Romances (1982) was more accurately a dramatized debate. In The Prophetic Soul: A Reading of H.G. Wells' Things to Come together with his Film Treatment "Whither Mankind?"and thePostproduction Script (1987) LES continued to argue that H.G. WELLS - especially in his Samurai mood - produced Leninist solutions to social problems. His Robert A. Heinlein (1987), more stridently, works better as an assault upon H. Bruce FRANKLIN's powerful study of HEINLEIN than as a balanced presentation of the author; the advocacy of his friend and subject in Harry Harrison (1990) proves ineffective through lack of judicious distance.Throughout his work, LES has been perhaps most notable - after his erudition is acknowledged - for a gadfly vigour. [JC]See also: ECONOMICS. STOW, (JULIAN) RANDOLPH (1935- ) Australian writer whose novels tend to embed deeply alienated protagonists into venues - some remote-which are described with anthropological precision, resulting in tales, whether non-genre or sf/fantasy, that verge constantly upon fable. In Tourmaline (1963) the venue is a decaying town in backwoods Australia and the time the NEAR FUTURE; the narrative is loaded with echoes of myth and forebodings. The 5 protagonists of Visitants (1979), set in Papua, supply a mosaic of responses to a First-Contact experience in a manner that remotely prefigures the strategies underlying Karen Joy FOWLER's SARAH CANARY (1991). [JC]Other works: Midnite: The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy (1967); The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980). STRAND MAGAZINE, THE UK magazine published monthly Jan 1891-Mar 1950 by George Newnes Ltd; ed Sir George Newnes and others. TSM was cheap, though not in appearance: it contained illustrated articles and fiction by well known authors. Its success created many rivals. In competition with PEARSON'S MAGAZINE (begun 1896) it started to feature sf regularly, having earlier published "An Express of the Future" (1895), a short story by Michel Verne (1861-1925), whom the editors mistook for his father (M. - "Monsieur" - Verne), bylining the story Jules VERNE. Foremost among TSM's sf contributors were Grant ALLEN, H.G. WELLS, Fred M. WHITE and Arthur Conan DOYLE, whose Sherlock Holmes stories had already given the magazine its initial success. In sf terms it is best remembered for the serializations of Wells's THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1900-1; 1901) and Doyle's The Lost World (1912; 1912), The Poison Belt (1913; 1913) and "The Maracot Deep" (1927-8). But there were many others, including L.T. Meade's (Mrs Elizabeth Thomasina Smith [1854-1914]) and Robert Eustace's The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings (Jan-Oct 1898; 1899). SM is an excellent source for sf stories intensely characteristic of the late Victorian and Edwardian period in the UK. [JE/PN]Further reading: Science Fiction By Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines 1891-1911 (1968) by Sam MOSKOWITZ; The Strand Magazine 1891-1950: A Selective Checklist (1979 chap) by J.F. Whitt; Strange Tales from the Strand Magazine (anth 1991) ed Jack Adrian (1945- ). STRANG, HERBERT Collaborative pseudonym of UK writers George Herbert Ely (1866-1958) and C.J. L'Estrange (1867-1947) used on a large number of boys' adventure stories, among them a series of novels about futuristic TRANSPORTATION devices, including King of the Air, or To Morocco on an Airship (1908), Lord of the Seas (1908), The Cruise of the Gyro-Car (1910), Round the World in Seven Days (1910), The Flying Boat (1912) and A Thousand Miles an Hour (1924). These were competently written with a certain Edwardian dash, and a fair amount of imperialist cliche. HS also published future- WAR Yellow Peril stories. [PN]Other works: The Old Man of the Mountain (1916); The Heir of a Hundred Kings (1930).See also: UNDER THE SEA. STRANGE ADVENTURES UK magazine, PULP-MAGAZINE size. 2 undated issues 1946 and 1947, published by Hamilton & Co., Stafford; ed anon. SA was an unmemorable juvenile sf magazine. As with its companion, FUTURISTIC STORIES, it was written entirely by Norman FIRTH under pseudonyms. [FHP] STRANGE BEHAVIOR DEAD KIDS. STRANGE FANTASY One of the many reprint DIGEST-size magazines published by Sol Cohen's Ultimate Publishing Co.; ed anon. 6 issues, 3 in 1969 (#8-#10) and 3 in 1970 (#11-#13). The strange numbering seems to be connected with the temporary death in 1969 of SCIENCE FICTION (ADVENTURE) CLASSICS after #8, but SF is not simply a variant title of the latter, which began again in 1971 with #12. Also, SF concentrated on fantasy (while printing some sf), mostly reprinted from FANTASTIC during the period of Cele GOLDSMITH's editorship. [PN] STRANGE INVADERS Film (1983). EMI Films/Orion/A Michael Laughlin Production. Dir Michael Laughlin, starring Paul Le Mat, Nancy Allen, Diana Scarwid, Michael Lerner, Wallace Shawn, Fiona Lewis. Screenplay William Condon, Laughlin. 93 mins. Colour.A very agreeable pastiche of movies like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) ( PARANOIA). The prologue shows a flying saucer ( UFOS) landing in a small town in 1958. The rest of this charming SATIRE is set in 1983, when entomologist Charlie (Bigelow) comes to learn that Centerville (the town) is now occupied by ALIENS in human form, that his wife (Scarwid) is an alien - he had previously regarded her blank manner as normal - that his (half-breed) daughter is to be taken with the aliens when they leave, and that New York is being infiltrated. The alien anthropological survey team have adopted the appearance and manner of small-town Americans of the Eisenhower years, and naturally appear grossly out of place in modern New York. ( MEET THE APPLEGATES [1990] adopts a similar premise.) Director Laughlin has his cake and eats it too by injecting genuine suspense into a story that is also deeply funny. This is the second of a projected but unfinished Strange trilogy from Laughlin, the first being DEAD KIDS (1981; vt Strange Behavior). [PN] STRANGE NEW WORLD Made-for-tv film (1975). Warner Bros. TV/ABC. Dir Robert Butler, starring John Saxon, Kathleen Miller, Keene Curtis, James Olson, Martine Beswick, Gerrit Graham. Screenplay Walon Green, Ronald F. Graham, Al Ramrus. 100 mins. Colour.The 1970s are littered with tv movies representing Gene RODDENBERRY's repeated attempts at pilot episodes for new tv series, though in this case he is not credited. This editing together of 2 never-aired episodes is a sort of sequel to GENESIS II (1973) and PLANET EARTH (1974), sharing the same star, Saxon, with the latter. Three astronauts, after 180 years in SUSPENDED ANIMATION, return to an Earth devastated by a meteor storm. What is left of civilization is balkanized, each group differing. The astronauts encounter two such groups. Eterna is a sterile utopia, with an obsession for cleanliness, that has conquered death; the wholesome travellers ensure that death makes a cleansing return to Eterna before they leave. They go on to restore peace in Arboria, a land divided by the Hunters and the Zookeepers, the latter being fanatical conservationists ready to kill to achieve their aims. [JB/PN] STRANGE PLASMA US SEMIPROZINE, small- BEDSHEET format, subtitled "speculative + imaginative fiction", published and ed Steve Pasechnick from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Eight irregular issues 1989-1994. This fiction magazine, too irregular to be influential, has quite high standards; it has published good stories by Terry DOWLING, Carol EMSHWILLER, R.A. LAFFERTY, Paul PARK, Cherry WILDER, Gene WOLFE and others. It features an interesting column of opinion by Gwyneth JONES. #8 (cover by Ian MILLER) announced itself to be the final issue. [PN] STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND Robert Heinlein's book, Stranger in a Strange Land, was one of the first SF novels to reach a mass market. In fact, it became such a cultural phenomenon in the 1960s that various religious cults attempted to live according to the precepts of the book's hero. And "Grok" buttons suddenly became hot items.In the spring of 1968, U.C.L.A. offered a course called "J.D. Salinger, Robert Heinlein, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other Personal Gurus."Reported Heinlein, "I'm sure a square, I don't even know who the third guru is."Heinlein's bemusement at his popularity may have ended abruptly in 1970, when it was reported that the sociopathic killer Charles Manson had been influenced by Stranger in a Strange Land. STRANGER WITHIN, THE Made-for-tv film (1974). Lorimar/ABC TV. Dir Lee Philips, starring Barbara Eden, George Grizzard, Joyce Van Patten, David Doyle. Teleplay Richard MATHESON, based on his "Mother by Protest" (1953). 72 mins. Colour.A woman (Eden) becomes pregnant - inexplicably, as her husband (Grizzard) is certified to be sterile. It turns out that she has been impregnated by a wandering Martian seed. At first the unpleasant side-effects of the pregnancy drive her to an attempted abortion, but she finally bears a healthy child who, along with a number of other Martian babies, floats off back towards Mars. The film, whose atmosphere of mounting PARANOIA is well achieved, belongs to the sinister-pregnancy movie cycle set off by Rosemary's Baby (1968). [JB/PN] STRANGE STORIES US PULP MAGAZINE. 13 bimonthly issues Feb 1939-Feb 1941, published by Better Publications Inc.; ed Leo MARGULIES or Mort WEISINGER, uncredited. A companion magazine to STARTLING STORIES and THRILLING WONDER STORIES, SS was devoted to supernatural and weird fiction, in not very successful competition with WEIRD TALES. Most of its covers were by Earle K. BERGEY. Its contributors included August DERLETH, Henry KUTTNER and Manly Wade WELLMAN. Although its companion magazines always publicized each other, they hardly mentioned SS. The magazine has remained remarkably little known. [MJE] STRANGE TALES 1. US PULP MAGAZINE. 7 issues Sep 1931-Jan 1933, published by Clayton Magazines; ed Harry BATES. ST (subtitled "of Mystery and Terror") was a companion magazine to Astounding Stories ( ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION) and was similar in editorial policy to WEIRD TALES; it carried very little sf. Its contributors included Robert E. HOWARD, Clark Ashton SMITH, Jack WILLIAMSON and others familiar to readers of ASF and Weird Tales. Its covers were all by WESSO. Like ASF it ceased publication when the Clayton Magazines went into liquidation, but was not revived when STREET & SMITH acquired the rights to the Clayton magazines. Strange Tales (anth 1976) is a facsimile collection of stories from the magazine.2. UK DIGEST weird-story reprint magazine; 2 undated issues 1946, published by Utopian Publications; ed Walter GILLINGS, uncredited, and featuring stories by, among others, Robert BLOCH, Ray BRADBURY, H.P. LOVECRAFT, Clark Ashton SMITH, Jack WILLIAMSON and John Beynon Harris (John WYNDHAM). [MJE/PN] STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X, THE 1. UK tv serial (1956). ATV. Prod Arthur Lane. Dir Quentin Lawrence, starring William Lucas, David Garth, Helen Cherry, Maudie Edwards. Teleplay Rene RAY. 7 25min episodes. Scientists discover a formula giving access to the 4th DIMENSION and, with others, are thereby transported to the abstractly arid Planet X.2. UK film (1958; vt The Cosmic Monster). Eros/DCA. Dir Gilbert Gunn, starring Forrest Tucker, Gaby Andre, Martin Benson, Wyndham Goldie. Screenplay Paul Ryder, Joe Ambor, based on The Strange World of Planet X * (1957) by Rene Ray. 75 mins. B/w.A mad scientist's magnetic experiments rupture Earth's ionosphere, thereby permitting the penetration of cosmic rays (!), which create giant insects on an area of Earth 80 miles (130km) across. The creatures are eventually destroyed by a friendly ALIEN. The special effects were manifestly done on a tiny budget; the film is normally regarded as mediocre. Its immediate source was probably Ray's novelization of 1, rather than the series itself, since the plot-lines differ. In the film, Planet X is Earth and the Cosmic Monster is Man. [PN/JB] STRASSER, TODD (1950- ) US writer whose first sf novel, The Mall from OuterSpace (1987), was a juvenile in which shopping malls are taken over byaliens. His remaining sf consists of film TIES: Honey, IBlew up the Kid* (1992); Super MarioBrothers* (1993) and Addams FamilyValues* (1993). [JC] STRATEMEYER, EDWARD T. (1869-1930) US dime-novel writer ( DIME-NOVEL SF), entrepreneur and mass producer of boys' books. He is chiefly important as the operator of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a story factory (or packager) that produced hundreds of boys' and girls' books in such popular series as The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and many others. ETS prepared plot summaries, farmed out writing to a stable of freelance writers to whom he paid pittances, and sold the products to publishers. The Great Marvel series as by Roy ROCKWOOD, the first 6 vols of which were written out by Howard R. GARIS, constitutes perhaps the first clothbound sf series in any language. The TOM SWIFT books, written by Garis 1910-32, were the most popular boys' books of all time. Borderline series included Don Sturdy (collaborator unknown) and Bomba, the Jungle Boy (collaborator unknown). After ETS's death his daughter Harriet Stratemeyer ADAMS successfully carried on the syndicate. [EFB] STRATTON, THOMAS Robert COULSON; Gene DEWEESE. STRAUS, RALPH (1892-1950) UK writer whose only full-scale sf novel, The Dust which is God: An Undimensional Adventure (1907), tamely depicts a world which has evolved religiously. In 5000 A.D.: A Review and an Excursion, Read Before ye Sette of Odd Volumes at Oddenino's Imperial Restaurant on Jan. 24th, 1911 (coll 1911 chap) the review is of the sf genre and the excursion is a TIME-TRAVEL tale. [JC] STRAUSS, ERWIN S(HEEHAN) (1943- ) A member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology SF Society, for whom he compiled Index to the S-F Magazines, 1951-1965 (1966), a BIBLIOGRAPHY which covers the same years as Norman METCALF's similar index; both succeed the original index for 1926-50 by Donald B. DAY. Unlike Metcalf's, ESS's book is compiled from a computer printout, and contains an issue-by-issue contents listing of the magazines for the period, in addition to story and author indexes. The MIT group, now known as N.E.S.F.A (New England Science Fiction Association) has produced subsequent vols, starting with Index to the Science Fiction Magazines 1966-1970 (1971), with annual vols since, which, from 1971, have also indexed the contents of original anthologies. A well known fan, EES wrote The Complete Guide to Science Fiction Conventions (1983 chap). [PN] STREET & SMITH Important US magazine publisher, established in the 19th century with various dime-novel series like Good News and The Nugget Library, and publishing early juvenile sf in the Tom Edison Jr. and Electric Bob series. The general-fiction The POPULAR MAGAZINE (1903-31) published a good few sf stories too. S&S was particularly famous for its Westerns, including Ned Buntline's deeply influential Buffalo Bill Cody stories, which helped mythologize the West. S&S were prominent in the splitting of PULP MAGAZINES into various genres, each aiming to have a market leader, one example being Detective Story Magazine. S&S was also the first to carry over from dime-novel publishing the idea of a pulp magazine devoted to a single character, with the very successful The Shadow (1931-49), whose adventures bordered sometimes on sf ( Walter B. GIBSON), The Avenger ( Paul ERNST) and, rather closer to sf, DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE (1933-49).When Clayton Publishing Company, publishers of Astounding Stories ( ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION) began to flounder in 1933, S&S bought the magazine in order to fill yet another market niche. S&S's considerable financial backing meant that ASF could pay quite good rates, get good stories, and compete strongly in the market, which it did. Later, S&S (and editor John W. CAMPBELL Jr) added a fantasy companion magazine, UNKNOWN (later Unknown Worlds). S&S's period of power coincided with the pulp boom; from 1948 the firm was phasing out its pulp publication and, with paperback books and tv increasingly threatening the dominance of the magazines, declining in importance ( PUBLISHING). S&S expired in 1961; its only remaining sf title, ASF, was sold to Conde Nast, the last S&S issue being Jan 1961. [PN] STRETE, CRAIG (KEE) (1950- ) US Native American writer - the suggestion has been bruited that CS is the pseudonym of a Cherokee who does not wish to reveal his real name, but this has not been confirmed. He has written as CS and under other names, by himself and in collaboration; at least 40 of the 80 or more stories claimed for him must be under unrevealed names. As CS, he began publishing for If in 1974 with the well known "Time Deer", a runner-up for the 1975 NEBULA; 2 other tales appeared simultaneously. From the mid-1970s he maintained a publishing connection with a Dutch house, and his first collection appeared initially in Dutch as Als Al Andere Faalt (coll 1976 Netherlands), only later gaining English-language release as If All Else Fails (exp coll 1980). His first book in English was The Bleeding Man and Other Science Fiction Stories (coll 1977) for older children. Intensely written, spare, though with lunges into flamboyance, committed and often moving, his tales frequently combine prose rhythms and subject matter connoting a Native American background with more usual sf themes like COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS, as in "When They Find You" from the latter vol. Though passionately couched, this work is sometimes crude in its opposition of the total horror of the White world with the mythic "naturalness" of the Native American: there is a sense, perhaps, of protesting too much. Later collections include Dreams that Burn in the Night (coll 1982) and Death Chants (coll 1988), the latter - as its title signifies - dealing frequently with terminal moments, though at times comically.After some children's fantasies - those published in English include Paint Your Face on a Drowning in the River (1978), When Grandfather Journeys into Winter (1979) and Big Thunder Magic (1990) - and the non-genre Burn Down the Night (1982), CS published a carnival fantasy, To Make Death Love Us (1987) as by Sovereign Falconer, and Death in the Spirit House (1988), over which controversy reigned for some time due to accusations by Ron MONTANA that the book had been plagiarized, very nearly in whole, from a manuscript given by him to CS. Granting only a modicum of Montana's case, CS mounted an elaborate defence. As part of an agreed settlement, Montana's version of the book was eventually published as Face in the Snow (1992), as by Montana and without reference to CS. [JC] STRIBLING, T.S. [r] APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD). STRICK, PHILIP (1939- ) UK sf and film critic, anthologist, teacher, and director of a film library. In 1969 he initiated one of the first adult evening classes in sf in the UK, sponsored by the University of London ( SF IN THE CLASSROOM), which continued until 1992. PS's Science Fiction Movies (1976) is a witty, rather helter-skelter account of sf CINEMA, one of the best early books on the subject (despite its lack of a filmography); his film criticism continues to appear in Monthly Film Bulletin (now incorporated in Sight and Sound). Antigrav (anth 1975) ed PS assembles funny sf short fiction, including John BROSNAN's first-published story. [PN] STRICKLAND, BRAD Working name of US writer William Bradley Strickland (1947- ), who has concentrated mainly on fantasy, most notably perhaps in early stories like "The Herders of Grimm" for FSF in 1984 and in the Jeremy Moon sequence - Moon Dreams (1988), Nul's Quest (1989) and Wizard's Mole (1991) - which conveys its protagonist into a wittily constructed dream world, where he takes his stand. BS's first novel, To Stand beneath the Sun (1986), is an sf adventure whose protagonist must come to terms with a world dominated by women. Ark Liberty (1992) as by Will Bradley treats the ecocatastrophic ( ECOLOGY) near-death of Earth with melodramatic panache, pitting its scientist hero against suicidal governments and embedding him - after his physical death - into the eponymous undersea biome as its computer mentor and spirit, while centuries pass. [JC]Other works: ShadowShow (1988); Children of the Knife (1990), medical horror; Dragon's Plunder (1992); Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Star Ghost * (1994) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Stowaways * (1994). STRIEBER, WHITLEY (1945- ) US writer, much better known for horror novels like The Wolfen (1978) and The Hunger (1981) than for his sf. War Day: And the Journey Onward (1984) with James Kunetka (1944) is a remarkably detailed post- HOLOCAUST tour of the USA after a 1988 nuclear conflict. Wolf of Shadows (1985) is a juvenile set in a post-holocaust nuclear winter. Nature's End (1986), again with Kunetka, is set in a NEAR-FUTURE world devastated by OVERPOPULATION (see also ECOLOGY). Communion: A True Story (1987) and Transformation: The Breakthrough (1988) purport to be nonfictional accounts of his encounters with visiting ALIEN intelligences ( UFOS). Communion was filmed as COMMUNION (1989). Also centred on ufology is his sf novel Majestic (1989; rev 1990), whose subject is the so-called Roswell Incident of 1947 (when, some claim, a UFO crashed in the New Mexico desert and the US Government mounted an extraordinary cover-up that persists to this day); putatively based on meticulously researched background detail, the novel incorporates, without acknowledgement or permission, a summary derived from secondary sources of David LANGFORD's fictional An Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World, 1871 (1979 as by William Robert Loosley, ed Langford) ( PSEUDO-SCIENCE). [JC]Other works: Black Magic (1982); The Night Church (1983); Cat Magic (1986 as Jonathan Barry with WS; 1987 as WS alone); The Wild (1991); Unholy Fire (1992); The Forbidden Zone (1993).See also: PARANOIA. STRIKE, JEREMY Pseudonym of US writer Thomas E(dward) Renn (1939- ), author of the unremarkable sf adventure A Promising Planet(1970 dos). [JC] STRINGER, ARTHUR (JOHN ARBUTHNOTT) (1874-1956) Canadian writer prolific in several genres from 1894, though he concentrated on the Canadian genre of survival tales set in the northern wilds. The Man who Couldn't Sleep (coll 1919 US) and The Wolf Woman (1928 US) are fantasy. Of sf interest are a film tie, The Story without a Name * (1924) with Russell Holman, in which a DEATH RAY appears, and The Woman who Couldn't Die (1929 US), whose Viking heroine, after spending 900 years in an ice-floe in a LOST WORLD (inhabited by blond Eskimos whose culture is based upon worshipping her) in northern Canada, is resurrected through blood transfusions injected by a mad scientist, only to fall fatally in love with one of his fellow intruders into the lost world. [JC] STROBL, K.H. [r] AUSTRIA. STRONGI'TH'ARM Charles Wicksteed ARMSTRONG. STROUD, ALBERT [s] Algis BUDRYS. STRUGATSKI, ARKADY (NATANOVICH) (1925-1991) and BORIS (NATANOVICH) (1931- ) Russian writers. Before they began to collaborate in the early 1950s, AS studied English and Japanese, and worked as a technical translator and editor, and BS was a computer mathematician at Pulkovo astronomical observatory. The brothers' first books made up an interplanetary cycle: Strana bagrovykh tuch ["The Country of Crimson Clouds"] (1959); Shest' spichek ["Six Matches"] (coll 1960); Put'na Amal'teiu (coll 1960), the lead novella of which was trans Leonid Kolesnikov as the title story of Destination: Amaltheia (anth 1962 USSR); Vozvrashchenie (Polden'. 22-i vek) (coll of linked stories 1962; exp to 22 stories vt Polden', XXII vek (Vozvrashchenie) 1967; trans Patrick L. MCGUIRE as Noon: 22nd Century 1978 US); and Stazhery (coll of linked stories 1962; trans Antonina W. Bouis as Space Apprentice 1982 US). This optimistic future HISTORY, set on or near Earth over a two-century period, espouses the romance of exploration and humanity's UTOPIAN thrust forward against the forces of Nature, and is acted out by believable vernacular heroes.A second phase soon began, in which utopian hopefulness did not survive unscathed. In "Dalekaia Raduga" (1963 Russia; trans Alan Myers as Far Rainbow 1967 USSR), history, with its pain, invades human existence through a physical catastrophe (which kills nearly all of the characters remaining alive from the first cycle). In Trudno byt' bogom (1964; trans Wendayne Ackerman from the German as Hard to be a God 1973 US) the darkness of history is - more directly - demonstrated on a feudal planet, where an observer from Earth finds it impossible to conclude that utopian intervention on his part will do any more than stun the world into a numbing dictatorship. But the unaltered world is dangerous and iniquitous, with premonitions of fascism and Stalinism clearly hinting to the visitor that, without intervention, huge tragedies will ensue. The successful marriage of vivid historical novel and sf makes this the brothers' paradigmatic early work. The book was filmed as TRUDNO BYT' BOGOM (1989).Far Rainbow later appeared, along with "Vtoroe nashestvie marsian" (1968) as Far Rainbow/The Second Invasion from Mars (coll trans Bouis [Far Rainbow] and Gary Kern [Second Invasion] 1979 US); the second tale is a Jonathan SWIFT-like masterpiece in which the INVASION is seen through the journal of a philistine who blindly registers the Martians' use of consumerism and conformity to transform humans into commodities. In this third phase, the brothers' darkening vision tended to express itself in VOLTAIRE-style FABULATIONS, where a formal mastery of expressionist plots cunningly exposed the societal bewilderment and growing bureaucratic sclerosis of their native Russia. In Ponedel'nik nachinaetsia v subbotu (1965; trans Leonid Renen as Monday Begins on Saturday 1977 US), folktale motifs are masterfully updated to embody in a dark picaresque the black and white MAGIC of modern alienated science and society. The sequel, Skazka o troike (1968 in a Russian magazine; 1972 Germany; trans Bouis as Tale of the Troika), which appeared with "Piknik na obochine" (1972 Avrora; trans Bouis as Roadside Picnic) in Roadside Picnic/Tale of the Troika (coll 1977 US), even more bleakly exposed the "scientifico-administrative" bureaucracy of the time. Roadside Picnic was turned by the brothers into 11 different scenarios for Andrei TARKOVSKY's STALKER (1979). The two stories, as published together in English, are an ideal introduction to this phase of their career. A final third-phase tale, Ulitka na sklone (part 1 in Ellinskii sekret [anth 1966] as "Kandid", part 2 1968 Baikal as "Pepper"; trans Alan Myers as The Snail on the Slope fixup 1980 US), is constructed as two interlocked stories set in an overpoweringly alien forest swamp; the two protagonists, Kandid and Pepper, respond differently to the world, the first in a "naive" stream of consciousness, the second in the guise of a Kafkaesque bureaucrat. The Kandid sequences are remarkably eloquent. The overall title is an image of the uncertainties of knowing: humanity climbs towards knowledge as a snail climbs a mountain.A fourth and even more sombre phase begins with the Maxim Trilogy - Obitaemyi ostrov (1969-71; trans Helen Saltz Jacobson as Prisoners of Power 1978 US), "Zhuk v muraveinike" (1979-80 Znanie-sila; trans Bouis as Beetle in the Anthill 1980 US) and "Volney gasiat veter" (1985-6 Znanie-sila; trans Bouis as The Time Wanderers 1987 US) - in which the sometimes consoling glow of fable is stripped from abrupt and violent stories as the (at times) incongruously juvenile heroes confront scenes of increasing alienation and desperation. In Gadkie lebedi (1966-7 in a Russian magazine; 1972 Germany [edn disavowed]; trans A.E. and A. Nakhimovsky as THE UGLY SWANS 1979 US [also disavowed]; trans as Children of Rain c1987 USSR), the metaphysical swamp of The Snail on the Slope is transfigured into a mysterious fog which envelops Moscow, and which seems to engender all manner of intrusions. The fog is a signal of the death of the old world, and a highly dubious harbinger of a new: the children of the tale, justifying its title (a play on that of the famous fable by Hans Christian Andersen), seem to be entering into metamorphosis and a future which may (possibly) be bright. "Za milliard let do kontsa sveta" (1976-7 Znanie-sila; trans Bouis as Definitely Maybe: A Manuscript Discovered under Unusual Circumstances 1978 US) again combines fable and a bleak depiction of the social world as SCIENTISTS attempt (in a manner evocative of the work of Stanislaw LEM) to parse an implacably unknowable "force" which seems to be paralysing human progress.Their last works, published only in the glasnost period, were: Khromaia sud'ba ["Lame Destiny"] (fixup 1989), which intertwines THE UGLY SWANS with other material from 1986; Grad obrechennyi ["The Doomed City"] (written 1970-87; 1989), perhaps their weightiest work to date; and Otiagoshchennye zlom, ili sorok let spustia ["Burdened by Evil, or 40 Years After"] (1989), which was evocative of the work of Mikhail BULGAKOV. Over their career, the brothers moved from a comparatively sunny vision in which utopia could be aimed at in the NEAR FUTURE to a sense that the tensions between utopian ethics and the inscrutable overwhelmingness of stasis were in fact irresolvable. They became the best Soviet sf writers, legitimate continuers of a Russian tradition extending from Nikolai Gogol ( RUSSIA) and Shchedrin (Mikhail E. Saltykov [1826-1889]) to Vladimir MAYAKOVSKY and Yuri Olesha (1889-1960); and half a dozen of their novels, in their recognition that a people without cognitive ethics devolves into a predatory bestiary, approach major literature. After the death of Arkady in 1991, it remained uncertain whether or not Boris would continue writing alone. [DS]Other works: Khishchnye veshchi veka (1965; trans Leonid Renen as The Final Circle of Paradise 1976 US);"Otel' 'U pogibshchego alpinista'" ["Hotel 'To the Lost Climber'" (1970 Iunost'), filmed in 1979 (vt Dead Mountaineer Hotel) and trans as The Hotel of the Lost Alpinist (a ghost title because the English-language publisher went out of business); Escape Attempt (coll trans 1982 US).As editors: The Molecular Cafe (anth 1968 Russia), ed anon. About the authors: "Criticism of the Strugatskii Brothers' Work" by Darko SUVIN, Canadian-American Slavic Studies #2 (Summer 1972); "The Literary Opus of the Strugatskii Brothers" by Suvin, Canadian-American Slavic Studies #3 (Fall 1974); "Future History, Soviet Style: The Work of the Strugatsky Brothers" by Patrick L. MCGUIRE, Critical Encounters #11 ed Tom Staicar; Soviet Fiction since Stalin: Science, Politics, and Literature (1986) by R.J. Marsh; The Second Marxian Invasion: The Fiction of the Strugatsky Brothers (1991) by Stephen W. Potts.See also: DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; GODS AND DEMONS; JUPITER; PHYSICS; POLITICS; SUPERMAN. STRYKER George MILLER STRYKER, DANIEL Chris MORRIS. STUART, ALEX R. Stuart GORDON. STUART, DON A. John W. CAMPBELL Jr. STUART, (HENRY) FRANCIS (MONTGOMERY) (1902- ) Irish writer, perceptions of whose long and controversial career were shaped by the fact that - although averse to Nazism - he stayed in Berlin during WWII as an Irish neutral, an experience recounted with chill brilliance in Black List, Section H (1971 US), his most famous single novel. Of his many books, some are fantasy, including Women and God (1931 UK), Try the Sky (1933 UK), A Hole in the Head (1977 UK) and Faillandia (1985), the latter book set in an imaginary Ireland in the throes of a military takeover. Pigeon Irish (1932 UK), set in a bleak battle-torn NEAR-FUTURE Europe, is sf, as is Glory (1933 UK), in which the world-dominating Trans-Continental Aero-Routes corporation is threatened by intrigues. [JC] STUART, IAN Alistair MACLEAN. STUART, SIDNEY Michael AVALLONE. STUART, W.J. Philip MACDONALD. STUFF, THE Film (1985). Larco/New World. Prod (with Peter Sabiston) and dir Larry COHEN, starring Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Patrick O'Neal. Screenplay Cohen. 87 mins. Colour.The Stuff is an addictive, gooey fast food which, though passive, is in all other respects a traditional monster; this MONSTER MOVIE is, in the Cohen manner, an atypical one. The baleful Stuff, originally found in a hole in the ground, takes over its victims when they eat it, sometimes rendering them homicidal. Moriarty plays with verve the industrial spy hired by other food manufacturers to get the truth about this new commercial success, and a satire ensues on corporate and individual greed, private right-wing armies, conformity and the nuclear family. This is a silly, not very well organized film that occasionally surprises with moments of truth and even of real horror. [PN] STURGEON, THEODORE (1918-1985) Working name of US writer born Edward Hamilton Waldo in New York City, later adopting his stepfather's surname and taking on a new first name; Argyll (coll 1993 chap) prints a long anguished letter TS wrote to his stepfather, plus an autobiographical essay from 1965, both of which more than confirm the hints of emotional turmoil implied by these name changes. Certainly TS early suffered or entered into several exiles: illness cut him off from any chance he might become a gymnast; when still a teenager he went to sea, where he spent 3 years while at the same time making his first fiction sales (1937) to McClure's syndicate for newspaper publication; after beginning to publish sf with "Ether Breather" for ASF (1939) he remained active as a member of the small band of genre-sf writers for only a few years before he abruptly stopped producing; he then spent half a decade abroad, variously employed, before returning to his primary career in 1946. The next 15 years saw him produce, in an almost constant flood, virtually all the remaining stories and novels for which he is remembered. Then, for the last 25 years of his life, except for 2-3 short periods of renewed flow, he was silent. Given that all of TS's best work somehow or other moves from alienation to some form of transcendent community, it might - crassly - be suggested that, in his own life, it was story-writing itself which represented that blissful movement towards acceptance and resolution which makes so many of his tales so emotionally fulfilling, and that when he was silent he was in exile. Certainly there can be no denying the green force that shoots through even the silliest PULP-MAGAZINE conceits to which he put his mind, or the sense of achieved and joyful tour de force generated by his best work.He had, one might say, a binary career: either he was writing nothing or he was writing at a high pitch. Of his approximately 175 stories, a very high proportion are as successful as he was allowed to be in a field not well designed, during his active years, to accommodate sf tales told with raw passion. TS was, in fact, initially less comfortable with ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION than with UNKNOWN, and that magazine's demise may have had something to do with his first departure from the field. In those first 3 years, however, he produced more than 25 stories, all in ASF and Unknown, using the pseudonyms E. Waldo Hunter or E. Hunter Waldo on occasions when he had 2 stories in an issue; several of the 25 remain among his best known, including "It" (1940 ASF; 1948 chap) and "Microcosmic God" (1941). Along with A.E. VAN VOGT, Robert A. HEINLEIN and Isaac ASIMOV, TS was a central contributor to and shaper of John W. CAMPBELL Jr's so-called GOLDEN AGE OF SF, though less comfortably than his colleagues, as even in those early years, while obeying the generic commands governing the creation of Campbellian technological or HARD SF, he was also writing sexually threatening, explorative tales like "Bianca's Hands" which, refused by US markets, finally appeared in the UK in 1947.In the late 1940s and the 1950s TS came into his full stride, and almost all his collections sort and resort this material. They are Without Sorcery (coll 1948; cut vt Not Without Sorcery 1961), E PLURIBUS UNICORN (coll 1953), A Way Home (coll 1955; with 2 stories cut 1956; with 3 stories cut, vt Thunder and Roses 1957 UK), Caviar (coll 1955), A Touch of Strange (coll 1958; with 2 stories cut 1959), Aliens 4 (coll 1959), Beyond (coll 1960), Sturgeon in Orbit (coll 1964), . . . And My Fear is Great/Baby is Three (coll 1965), Starshine (coll 1966; 3 uncollected stories plus reprints), The Worlds of Theodore Sturgeon (coll 1972), The Stars are the Styx (coll 1979), The Golden Helix (coll 1979) and Alien Cargo (coll 1984). A late compilation, A Touch of Sturgeon (coll 1987 UK) ed David PRINGLE, usefully selects from this mass; and a definitive attempt to publish his entire short fiction began with The Ultimate Egoist (coll 1994) ed Paul WILLIAMS. Although he continued to contribute to ASF for several years, most of the work assembled in these collections first appeared in newer and more flexible markets like GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION, where he published much of his best work after 1950. Though shibboleths ( TABOOS) still haunted editors of GENRE SF, he clearly felt increasingly free to write stories expressive of his sense that sexual diversity, sexual "abnormality" and love - however manifested - constituted a set of codes or maps capable of leading maimed adolescents out of alienation and into the light. Though most of his explorations of this material seem unexceptionable in 1992, stories like "The World Well Lost" (1953), about ALIENS exiled from their own culture because of their homosexuality, created considerable stir in the 1950s ( SEX). Though the road to liberation (or transcendent community) was sometimes solely internal, the dictates of sf and fantasy, and TS's own romantic impulses, generated a large number of tales in which CHILDREN, gifted with paranormal powers, must fight against a repressive world until they meet others of their kind. TS's short stories read like instruction manuals for finding the new world.The most famous examples of the sense of enablement he generated, however, were his 3 best novels. The Dreaming Jewels (1950; vt The Synthetic Man 1957) is an enjoyable and sophisticated tale whose young protagonist, forced to run away to a circus by wicked step-parents, gradually becomes aware of his powers, and defeats the evil adult forces about him. MORE THAN HUMAN (fixup 1953), winner of the 1954 INTERNATIONAL FANTASY AWARD and TS's most famous single title, consists of 3 connected stories, "Baby is Three" (1952 Gal) plus 2 novellas written around it. With very considerable intensity it depicts the coming together of 6 deeply alienated "freaks" into a PSI-POWERED gestalt, where they achieve true maturity. In The Cosmic Rape (1958) a HIVE-MIND from the stars invades mankind but finds itself - to its ultimate betterment - catalysing Homo sapiens as a racial entity into one gestalt: the sense of homecoming generated by the final pages of this short book is deeply touching.Though TS won both HUGO and NEBULA for one of his infrequent later stories, "Slow Sculpture" (1970), his later career was not happy. Venus Plus X (1960), however, bravely came as close to a traditional UTOPIA as any US genre-sf writer had approached before the efforts of Mack REYNOLDS. Charlie Johns awakens in Ledom (that is, Model), a melodious unisex society, longingly and effectively depicted as having transcended that sexual divisiveness of mankind against which TS always argued, and finds that he has been roused so as to examine Ledom and judge its success. Though he discovers to his distress that the androgynous bliss of Ledom depends not on a mutation but on surgery immediately after birth, the final message of the novel combines didactic arguments for and against this vision of human paradise with longing for its realization. Later stories were assembled in Sturgeon is Alive and Well . . . (coll 1971) and Case and the Dreamer (coll 1974). Godbody (1986), a short novel on which he had been working for some time before his death, weakly reiterates earlier paeans to transcendence. But the continued publication of stories from the years of his prime helped maintain an appropriate sense of TS as a writer of very considerable stature. His influence upon writers like Harlan ELLISON and Samuel R. DELANY was seminal, and in his life and work he was a powerful and generally liberating influence in post-WWII US sf. Though his mannerisms were sometimes self-indulgent, though his excesses of sympathy for tortured adolescents sometimes gave off a sense of self-pity, and though his technical experiments were perhaps less substantial than their exuberance made them seem, his very faults illuminated the stresses of being a US author writing for pay in an alienated era and in the solitude of his craft. [JC]Other works: The Rare Breed (1966), a Western, as are the stories in Sturgeon's West (coll 1973), 3 of which are with Don Ward; I, Libertine (1956), a historical novel as by Frederick R. Ewing; The King and Four Queens (1956), a detective novel; Some of Your Blood (1961), a non-sf study of a blood-drinking psychotic; Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea * (1961), a novelization of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (1961); an Ellery Queen detection, The Player on the Other Side (1963) as by Ellery Queen; The Joyous Invasions (coll 1965 UK), which includes 2 stories from Aliens 4 together with "To Marry Medusa", which was later exp as The Cosmic Rape, both being reissued as The Cosmic Rape and "To Marry Medusa" (coll 1977); To Here and the Easel (coll 1973 UK), all stories previously collected; Amok Time * (graph 1978), a STAR TREK "fotonovel"; More Than Human: The Graphic Story Version (graph 1979); Maturity: Three Stories (coll 1979); Pruzy's Pot (1972 The National Lampoon; 1986 chap); The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff (1955 FSF; 1989 dos); The Dreaming Jewels/The Cosmic Rape/Venus Plus X (omni 1990).About the author: Theodore Sturgeon: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980) and Theodore Sturgeon (1981 chap), both by Lahna F. Diskin; Theodore Sturgeon (1981) by Lucy Menger.See also: BIOLOGY; CITIES; CLONES; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; DEFINITIONS OF SF; DIMENSIONS; ESP; EVOLUTION; FEMINISM; GODS AND DEMONS; GREAT AND SMALL; INVASION; ISLANDS; LIVINGWORLDS; MACHINES; The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ; MARS; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; MESSIAHS; NEW WORLDS; NUCLEAR POWER; PARANOIA; POWER SOURCES; PSYCHOLOGY; REINCARNATION; RELIGION; SCIENTISTS; SOCIOLOGY; SUPERMAN; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES; THEODORE STURGEON MEMORIAL AWARD; TRANSPORTATION; UNDER THE SEA; WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST. STURGIS, MEL [r] Kris NEVILLE. SUBMARINES TRANSPORTATION; UNDER THE SEA. SUBMERSION OF JAPAN, THE NIPPON CHINBOTSU. SUBURBAN COMMANDO Film (1991). New Line Cinema. Dir Burt Kennedy, starring Hulk Hogan, Christopher Lloyd, Shelley Duvall, Larry Miller. Screenplay by Frank Capello. 90 mins. Colour.This modest, affable sf comedy about a large, rough, humanoid ALIEN (pro wrestling star Hogan) who crashlands on Earth after being temporarily retired as an interstellar righter of wrongs, sets its sights rather low, and does quite well. The primitive but effective humour is in the wish-fulfilment fantasy of seeing one kind of nastiness - as found in a somewhat blue-collar Californian suburb - getting its comeuppance from a more "decent" brand of brutality. Lloyd plays the put-upon husband who learns not to let them kick sand in his face, and helps defeat the MONSTER disguised as a human who seeks to rule the Galaxy. [PN] SUCHARITKUL, SOMTOW (PAPINIAN) [r] S.P. SOMTOW. SUCHDOLSKY, METOD [r] CZECH AND SLOVAK SF. SUDDABY, (WILLIAM) DONALD (1900-1964) UK writer, mostly for children, who began publishing work of genre interest as Alan Griff with stories like "House of Desolation" for Cornhill in 1934; his first sf book, a novel for adults, was Lost Men in the Grass (1940) ( GREAT AND SMALL) as by Griff. The third novella assembled in Masterless Swords: Variations on a Theme (coll of linked stories 1947) is set in a future where men wage war on women. DS soon became - and remained - best known for his juvenile sf novels, beginning with The Star Raiders (1950) and The Death of Metal (1952); the most notable is perhaps Village Fanfare, or The Man from the Future (1934 Cornhill as by Griff; much exp 1954), a TIME-TRAVEL tale in which a 1907 Shropshire village is visited from the future by a man looking for, and finding, human wisdom in his past. Prisoners of Saturn (1957) is a SPACE OPERA. Some of DS's non-sf books, like Tower of Babel (1962), have some fantasy content. [JC]Other work: Scarlet-Dragon: A Little Chinese Phantasy (1923 chap).See also: CHILDREN'S SF. SUFFLING, MARK Donald S. ROWLAND. SULLIVAN, (EDWARD) ALAN (1868-1947) Canadian writer who spent much of his adult life in the UK, and who was prolific in various genres, including detective fiction as Sinclair Murray. His fantasies include The Jade God (1924), In the Days of their Youth (1926), The Magic Makers (1930), Mr Absalom (1930) and ". . . And from that Day" (1944). Of sf interest is In the Beginning (1927), a LOST-WORLD tale set - as so often in the early 20th century - in the Andes; this one contains ancient species and some Neanderthals (unusually far south). In A Little Way Ahead (1929) an ordinary man, suddenly becoming prescient, makes money on the Stock Exchange, but is doomed by personal flaws. [JC] SULLIVAN, SEAN MEI Jerry SOHL. SULLIVAN, SHEILA (P.) (1927- ) UK writer, sometimes of criticism as by Sheila Bathurst. Her sf novel Summer Rising (1975; vt The Calling of Bara 1976 US) depicts a post- HOLOCAUST trek across a peaceful Ireland. [JC] SULLIVAN, TIM(OTHY ROBERT) (1948- ) US writer and editor who began publishing sf with stories like "My Father's Head" for Chrysalis 5 (anth 1979) ed Roy TORGESON and "The Rauncher Goes to Tinker Town" for New Dimensions 9 (anth 1979) ed Robert SILVERBERG, tales whose sophistication led to some disappointment when his first-published novels turned out to be 3 "V" ties: "V": The Florida Project * (1985), "V": The New England Resistance * (1985) and "V": To Conquer the Throne * (1987). The published order of TS's books is, however, deceptive, as his first-written novel, Destiny's End (1988), suffered delays and modifications from its initially intended publisher. The book proved to be a complexly moody depiction of humanity at the end of its tether in an array of DYING-EARTH venues, as ALIEN races with quasimagical technologies manipulate the course of events. The Parasite War (1989) and The Martian Viking (1991) likewise demonstrate a nascent vigour, and TM seems to be one of those authors whose time might, finally, come.Two anthologies, Tropical Chills (anth 1988) and Cold Shocks (anth 1991), composed of carefully selected original and reprinted material, mostly horror, demonstrate TM's editorial acuteness. [JC] SULLIVAN, VERNON Boris VIAN. SUMMERS, DENNIS G.J. BARRETT. SUN The Sun, as the energy-source which permits life to exist on Earth, was widely worshipped in the ancient world. After the Copernican Revolution it became the hub of the Universe, but with the advent of a broader view of the cosmos it lost some of its prestige. Some speculative writers of the 19th century considered it a world like any other and included it in cosmic tours; examples are the anonymous Journeys into the Moon, Several Planets and the Sun (1837) and Joel R. Peabody's A World of Wonders (1838). Several early sf stories, assuming the Sun to be sustained by combustion, anticipated the day when it would burn out; examples are Camille FLAMMARION's Omega (1893-4), H.G. WELLS's THE TIME MACHINE (1895), George C. WALLIS's "The Last Days of Earth" (1901) and William Hope HODGSON's The House on the Borderland (1908) ( END OF THE WORLD). Clark Ashton SMITH recalls the imagery of Hodgson's novel in "Phoenix" (1954), a poignant but anachronistic story about the reignition of the dying Sun (by the time the story was written - in the 1930s - it had long been known that the Sun produced heat by nuclear fusion), an idea ingeniously recapitulated in Gene WOLFE's Book of the New Sun series (1980-83). Although the Sun's surface temperature had been established spectroscopically in the 1890s, John MASTIN was still able to imagine, in Through the Sun in an Airship (1909), exactly such a voyage, and H. KANER set The Sun Queen (1946) on a sunspot.J.B.S. HALDANE's "The Last Judgment" (1927) and Olaf STAPLEDON's LAST AND FIRST MEN (1930) imagine changes in the Sun's brilliance as crucial factors in Man's future EVOLUTION. In "Ark of Fire" (1943) by John Hawkins the Earth is moved nearer to the Sun, with predictable consequences for surface life. In numerous DISASTER stories the Sun goes nova, although some humans usually manage to escape, as in J. T. MCINTOSH's One in Three Hundred (1954). In Edmond HAMILTON's "Thundering Worlds" (1934) the 9 planets themselves become interstellar wanderers, accelerating towards a new star. In Arthur C. CLARKE's "Rescue Party" (1946) ALIENS arrive to save mankind but find that their aid is unnecessary, and in Norman SPINRAD's The Solarians (1966) the nova is induced to destroy an alien spacefleet, while the human race makes its escape. In Edward WELLEN's Hijack (1971) disinformation about such a nova is used in order to trick the Mafia into hijacking a spacefleet and blasting off for the stars. Stories which make a detailed study of reactions to the news that the Sun may go nova include Hugh KINGSMILL's "The End of the World" (1924) and Larry NIVEN's "Inconstant Moon" (1971). The hero of George O. SMITH's Troubled Star (1953) discovers that aliens want to make the Sun into a variable star so that it may serve as an interstellar lighthouse.The notion that the Sun might be the abode of life is developed in Stapledon's The Flames (1947) and Hamilton's "Sunfire!" (1962). Sun-consuming lifeforms hatch out of the planets in Jack WILLIAMSON's improbable "Born of the Sun" (1934). The idea that STARS might be living beings has been developed on several occasions, but not often applied to our own Sun; Gregory BENFORD's and Gordon EKLUND's "If the Stars are Gods" (1974; incorporated into If the Stars are Gods, fixup 1977) is ambiguous in this respect. The Sun's significance as a religious symbol is further exploited in The Day the Sun Stood Still (anth 1972) ed Robert SILVERBERG, which features 3 novellas based on the premise that the miracle granted to Joshua so that he could win a vital battle might be repeated tomorrow to persuade mankind of the reality of divine power.The Sun often figures in GENRE SF as a potential disaster area ready to consume spaceships which stray too close; examples are Willy LEY's "At the Perihelion" (1937 as by Robert Willey; vt "A Martian Adventure"), Hal CLEMENT's "Sun Spot" (1960), Poul ANDERSON's "What'll You Give?" (1963 as by Winston P. Sanders; vt "Que Donn'rez Vous?") and George Collyn's "In Passage of the Sun" (1966). The weather technicians of Theodore L. THOMAS's "The Weather Man" (1962), however, skim across the surface of the Sun in "sessile boats" in order to control its radiation output. A spate of dangerous radiation from the Sun plays a key role in Philip E. HIGH's Prodigal Sun (1964), which was presumably written around its awful titular pun; the Earth is saved through the creation of an artificial shielding layer of gas in the upper atmosphere. A spectacular close encounter by a space-station takes place in Charles L. HARNESS's Flight into Yesterday (1949; 1953; vt The Paradox Men 1955 dos), and an even more spectacular one in David BRIN's Sundiver (1980), the sf novel to date which deals most extensively and most scrupulously with modern scientific knowledge about the Sun.One curious aspect of the Sun's behaviour, the 11-year sunspot cycle discovered by Heinrich Schwabe (1789-1875) in 1851, is hypothetically correlated with Earthly events in Clifford D. SIMAK's "Sunspot Purge" (1940) and Philip LATHAM's "Disturbing Sun" (1959). The SOLAR WIND is featured in a number of sf stories. [BS] SUPERBOY US tv series (1988-91). An Alexander and Ilya Salkind Production, for syndication. Executive prod Ilya Salkind, prod Robert Simmonds. Dirs included Reza S. Badiyi, Colin Chilvers, Peter Kiwitt, David Grossman, David Nutter, Richard J. Lewis. Writers included Fred Freiberger, Cary Bates, Mark Jones, Toby Martin, Michael Carlin and Andrew Helfer, David GERROLD. 3 seasons, 78 25min episodes in all. Colour.The Salkinds, who made 3 of the SUPERMAN movies, here returned with a brisk, not very expensive series based on the teenage years of Clark Kent at Shuster University (Joe Shuster [1914-1991] was co-creator of Superman), where he is studying with his childhood friend, glamorous Lana Lang. The time is, anachronistically, the present. Cast changes were confusing: John Haymes Newton played Superboy (woodenly) in season 1, then was replaced by Gerard Christopher; Scott Wells played Lex Luthor in season 1, then was replaced by Sherman Howard. Lana Lang was played by Stacy Haiduk, and cub reporter T.J. White (son of Daily Planet editor Perry White) by Jim Calvert. At only half an hour per episode there was not much room for complex plotting. There was a laudable variety of villains (golems, werewolves, other-dimensional imps, androids, aliens and succubi among them), but the treatment was mostly routine. In season 3 Lana and Clark go to work for the Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters. [PN] SUPERCAR UK tv series (1961-2). AP Films/ATV/ITC. From an idea by Gerry ANDERSON and Reg Hill, produced by Anderson. Dirs included David Elliott, Alan Pattillo, Desmond Saunders, Bill Harris. Writers were either Gerry and Sylvia Anderson or Martin and Hugh Woodhouse. 2 seasons, 39 25min episodes in all. B/w.This was the first of Anderson's SuperMarionation sf series for children. Supercar, which can also travel under the sea and through the air, was invented by Professor Popkiss and is driven by Mike Mercury (or sometimes the talking monkey Mitch). Constant efforts to steal Supercar are made by Masterspy. Some of the storylines are sf (mad scientists, supermagnets); some are merely crime-fighting. The series was a big success, and sold in the USA. More SuperMarionation series followed ( Gerry and Sylvia ANDERSON for details). [PN] SUPERGIRL Film (1984). Artistry/Cantharus. Dir Jeannot Szwarc, starring Helen Slater, Faye Dunaway, Peter O'Toole, Peter Cook, Brenda Vaccaro. Screenplay David Odell, based on the Supergirl comic. 124 mins. Colour.This is the last and least successful of the 4 SUPERMAN-and-spin-off films made by the Salkinds before they sold the rights to Golan and Globus of Cannon Films, who went on to make SUPERMAN IV. S is basically fantasy. The Omegahedron, a power source from Krypton's Argo City, is lost and Supergirl (nee Kara) goes to Earth in search of it. It has fallen into the hands of a sorceress, Selena (Dunaway). Female superpowers are interestingly seen in terms of natural fertility rather than physical strength: bunnies and flowers surround sweet teenager Supergirl (Slater). The film has imaginative moments (the mountain fortress that appears in the high street, the Dore-inspired Phantom Zone) but is also incoherent and trite, and haltingly directed by a graduate from tv, Szwarc, whose most acceptable sf film was his first, BUG (1975).The novelization is Supergirl* (1984) by Norma Fox Mazer.[PN] SUPERHEROES Superhero fiction is a genre invented in COMICS; since then it has infiltrated the CINEMA, RADIO, TELEVISION and books. Sf stories of supermen go back to the beginning of the century, but the particular version of the superman theme that established the "superhero" pattern began in Action Comics (June 1938) when the comic-book hero SUPERMAN made his first appearance; he was soon given his own comic. Imitations soon appeared, including CAPTAIN MARVEL (from 1940), Wonder Woman (from 1942), Plastic Man (from 1944), Human Torch (from 1939), Captain America (from 1941) and so on. These characters differed from the PULP-MAGAZINE heroes of the 1930s, like DOC SAVAGE, who, though highly trained and with access to superscientific devices, were ordinary human beings; superheroes had superpowers which, despite their varying sf rationalizations, were effectively MAGIC abilities. (One hugely popular borderline superhero is Batman, created as a character in 1939 and given his own comic in 1940: he has no superpowers, and is in the line of descent from Doc Savage, not Superman.) However, superheroes and HEROES of the period were alike in that both spent much of their working hours struggling against crime - often crime carried out by mad SCIENTISTS seeking to rule the world - and in this important respect hero-fiction and superhero fiction formed a continuum rather than two different genres. Also, then as now, superhero fiction was (most of the time) only a borderline-sf genre. Most of the action took place in a comic-book version of the real world, against gangsters, secret agents and the like; the borderline-sf elements lay in the origin of the superhero (Superman, for example, getting his power from his birth on the alien planet Krypton) and secondarily in the often superscientific devices used by the VILLAINS. (In this Encyclopedia we have therefore been somewhat selective in choosing which superhero comics, films and tv series should be given entries.)Having begun in the comics, superheroes soon started appearing in other media: children's books, radio serials and film serials at first. After intensive activity in the 1940s, the superhero theme came to seem rather played out by the 1950s, since its possible story variations seemed few. It was in the comics, again, that the superhero found a new lease of life, notably in the work Jack KIRBY did for MARVEL COMICS, and especially in his creation of The Fantastic Four in 1961. (For many years Marvel propaganda had it that Stan LEE was the true creator of the Marvel superheroes of the 1960s, with Kirby merely the artist assigned to carry out instructions. The now- dominant revisionist view is that Kirby was the presiding genius of the new superhero format, which among other things involved enormous advances in the techniques of comic-book ILLUSTRATION.) Superheros became humanized; they aged, had neuroses, suffered angst; they often behaved badly; sometimes they were corrupted by their constant battle against the tawdry and the criminal; some superheroes chose to become supervillains instead; sometimes they even had sex lives (unlike the prissy and celibate Superman). In short, they became very much more interesting. These changes did not happen overnight; they began with The Fantastic Four, but developed in The Incredible Hulk from 1962, The Amazing Spider-Man in his own comic from 1963, X-MEN (from 1963) and so on. The complex stories developed in The Fantastic Four were particularly memorable (and sciencefictional) when the Four found themselves pitted against Galactus, and especially in those issues containing the most surreal superhero of all, the temperamental and reviled Silver Surfer, imprisoned in Earth's atmosphere by Galactus, riding capriciously through space on his surfboard and sometimes saving Earth. He had his own comic for a while, The Silver Surfer (1968-70).Superhero fiction since the 1960s, while it has remained often repetitive and simplistic in its mass-market manifestations, has developed, here and there, an extremely sophisticated edge-sometimes in mass-market comics but more often in GRAPHIC NOVELS. One landmark was Frank MILLER's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), which re-created Batman in darker, more painful shades than ever before, but the outstanding critique of the superhero comic from within the genre itself is Alan MOORE's WATCHMEN, a coherent graphic novel which is (unusually) a true novel in structure; its first publication constituted the 12 issues of Watchmen (1986-7) from DC COMICS. This is true sf, which confronts with great imaginative intensity the whole issue of what a society would be like that did actually contain superheroes, and how corrupting and fatiguing the state of superheroism might be. Also complex and sophisticated, beginning at around the same time, is the WILD CARDS series of original anthologies (from 1987) ed George R.R. MARTIN, in which superheroes are called"Aces" for fear of copyright infringement. The Wild Card stories (and the subsequent sequence of graphic books based on them) imagine, among other things, how superheroes might interact with historical process. A blackly comic novel which also forms a critique of the superhero business is Michael BISHOP's Count Geiger's Blues (1992).Sadly, the increasing intelligence and imagination displayed in many superhero comics since the 1960s has seldom been reflected in their tv and film equivalents. We do not include entries for the Spiderman or Batman movies, or tv series like Batman (1966-8, very influential with its stylized jokiness) or The Flash (1990 on), even though the latter is more inventive than most of its kind; both are too far removed from sf proper. Superhero tv series that do receive entries are The BIONIC WOMAN (1976-8), The INCREDIBLE HULK (1977-82), The INVISIBLE MAN (1975-6), The MAN FROM ATLANTIS (1977), The SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN (1973-8), SAPPHIRE AND STEEL (1979-82), SUPERBOY (1988-91), SUPERMAN (1953-7) and WONDER WOMAN (1974-9). The notable thing about this list is that all but one (Sapphire and Steel) are US; the superhero phenomenon is almost exclusively a US phenomenon. The other notable thing is that these series are nearly all infantile. One marginal superhero (not usually thought of in that light) of greater interest than most of the above is Vincent, the Beast in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1987-90); this may be due to George R.R. Martin, its chief writer, who is very much alive to the mythic resonances of the superhero genre.In the cinema, the superhero genre managed better, at least in the SUPERMAN movies, than it normally did on tv, but beyond the Superman films there is not a great deal of interest. Indeed, in the cinema people with superpowers often come to a bad end, as in X: THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES (1963), The 4D MAN (1959), The DEAD ZONE (1983) and The LAWNMOWER MAN (1992). The protagonists of The RETURN OF CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE (1982), The TOXIC AVENGER (1984), The TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (1986), MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987), ROBOCOP (1987), DARKMAN (1990) and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990) cannot be called hardcore superheroes, being respectively a drunk, disgusting, robots, musclebound, cyborgized, hideously deformed and pizza-eating adolescent reptiles, although in the new era of superheroes (these all being films of the 1980s) this rag, tag and bobtail bunch may represent precisely where the superhero genre now finds itself.The fact still unrealized by much of the world of letters is that the best superhero fictions are still to be found where they were found in the first place: in the comics.[PN] SUPERMAN In the same way that theories of EVOLUTION provide an imaginative context for sf stories about the ORIGIN OF MAN and LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS, so they govern attitudes to superhumans. There is a significant difference, though, between Darwin-inspired images of a "fitter"species and images inspired by Lamarckian and Bergsonian ideas of"creative evolution", in which the emergence of a superman might be the result of humankind's fervent desire to become something finer. Also of some relevance-although its direct influence on sf is minimal-is the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), with its heavy emphasis on the life-enhancing"will to [creative] power" which might be brought to full flower in the"Ubermensch", or "overman" .Early sf writers were surprisingly loth to make the superman an outright figure of menace, even where Darwinian thought was dominant: although they usually conceded that there was no place for them in contemporary human society, and generally disposed of them in one way or another, most were very much on the side of the superhumans. The reasons are simple enough: most of the early writers concerned were harshly critical of the contemporary human condition and wholly in favour of"progress"; moreover, writers frequently credit themselves with a proto- superhuman viewpoint. It is very easy to love the notion of the superman if we believe that we might become supermen ourselves, or at least be parent to their becoming; it is for this reason that Bergsonian ideas are more frequently echoed in superman stories than Darwinian ones, and some works-most notably George Bernard SHAW's Back to Methuselah (1921)-are based on an explicit neo-Lamarckism. Both the Darwin-inspired H.G. WELLS, in The Food of the Gods (1904), and the Bergson-inspired J.D. BERESFORD , in The Hampdenshire Wonder (1911), are allied with their superhuman characters, agreeing with their indictments of the follies of contemporary man. The same is true of two other classic SCIENTIFIC ROMANCES directly inspired by Beresford: E.V. ODLE's The Clockwork Man (1923) and Olaf STAPLEDON's Odd John (1935)-although the former carefully keeps its real superhumans (the makers of the eponymous CYBORG) offstage, as does Claude HOUGHTON in This was Ivor Trent (1935) whose hysterical climax represents the extremity of UK interbellum disenchantment. The fascination which writers of scientific romance had for the idea of superhumanity is displayed also in M.P. SHIEL's Ubermensch stories, The Isle of Lies (1909) and The Young Men are Coming (1937), Muriel JAEGER's The Man with Six Senses (1927) and Hermes Speaks (1933), John HARGRAVE's The Imitation Man (1931), Wells's Star-Begotten (1937), Andrew MARVELL's Minimum Man (1938), Beresford's "What Dreams May Come ..." (1941) and Stapledon's A Man Divided (1950). Guy DENT's Emperor of the If (1926) is especially interesting in its sceptical examination of the hypothesis that a more challenging environment would have produced a fitter and better mankind.In France, Bergson's one-time pupil Alfred JARRY produced a comic erotic fantasia of superhumanity in The Supermale (1902; trans 1968) but The New Adam (1924; trans 1926) by Noelle ROGER, working under the inspiration of religious rather than scientific ideas, presents an emotionless ultrarationalistic superman as a straightforward figure of menace. In the USA Philip WYLIE put an ordinary human mind into a superhuman body in Gladiator (1930), and thus avoided the whole issue of INTELLIGENCE, but his heroic superman decides of his own accord that there is no place for him in human society and invites God to strike him dead; God (no friend of evolution) obliges.In early GENRE SF the superman was used as a figure of menace by John Russell FEARN in The Intelligence Gigantic (1933; 1943), but Fearn gradually relented: the short version of The Golden Amazon (1939 as by Thornton Ayre; rev 1944) is similar, but in the novel version, and even more so in its many sequels, superwoman Violet Ray is a comic-style caped crusader. The MUTANT superman in John TAINE's Seeds of Life (1931; 1951) is also menacing, meeting his end in a particularly horrible manner; but there is some attempt to analyse his viewpoint with sympathy. In Stanley G. WEINBAUM's"The Adaptive Ultimate" (1936) a scientist who creates a superwoman has to kill her in order to protect the world from her ruthlessness, but again there is a tentative expression of sympathy. Weinbaum had earlier written the posthumously published The New Adam (1939), a painstaking account of a superhuman growing up in the human world, treating the hypothesis objectively rather than intending to criticize the contemporary human condition. The superman suffers as a result of being a"feral child" among ordinary humans, but his death does not put an end to the history of his kind. Publication of this pioneering work was quickly followed by 2 novels that paved the way for a glut of superhuman HEROES: SLAN (1940; 1946) by A.E. VAN VOGT and DARKER THAN YOU THINK (1940; 1948) by Jack WILLIAMSON. In the former a persecuted superchild grows into mature command of his latent powers as he confronts a sea of troubles; in the latter the hero sets out to fight a species of the genus Homo which threatens to replace Homo sapiens, but discovers that he is one of the other species himself, and accepts the dictates of his genes. In both stories a superman is unhesitatingly offered to the reader for identification and, far from going to his destruction in the climax, becomes something of a MESSIAH figure. This new pattern quickly became a CLICHE of pulp sf. Van Vogt repeated it many times, other versions including Earth's Last Fortress (1942 ASF as"Recruiting Station"; vt as title story of Masters of Time [coll 1950]; 1960 dos),"The Changeling" (1944), The World of A (1945; rev 1948; rev vt The World of Null-A 1970) and The Pawns of Null-A (1948-9 ASF as "The Players of A";1956; rev vt The Players of Null-A 1966) and Supermind (fixup 1977). Van Vogt abandoned writing sf for some years when he became involved with L. Ron HUBBARD's DIANETICS movement, which translocated this cliche into a PSEUDO-SCIENCE which in turn transmuted into the RELIGION of SCIENTOLOGY. Williamson, too, repeated the formula in Dragon's Island (1951; vt The Not-Men 1968).Genre sf of the late 1940s and early 1950s abounded with stories about groups of noble superhumans-notably covert immortals ( IMMORTALITY)-misunderstood and unjustly persecuted by their stupid, envious cousins. Great impetus was lent to the theme by the popularization of J.B. Rhine's experiments in parapsychology ( ESP), which lent credence to the idea that there might be supermen already among us, not yet aware of their latent powers. Rhine provided a new archetype for the superhuman, outwardly normal but possessed of one or more PSI POWERS. John W. CAMPBELL Jr's interest in Rhine's research and in Dianetics helped to make ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION home to a considerable"psi boom" in the early 1950s. Notable stories of persecuted Rhine-type supermen include Henry KUTTNER's Baldy series, published as by Lewis Padgett (fixup 1953 as MUTANT), Wilmar H. SHIRAS 's Children of the Atom (fixup 1953), Zenna HENDERSON's People series, assembled in Pilgrimage (coll of linked stories 1961) and The People: No Different Flesh (coll of linked stories (1966), and Wilson TUCKER's Wild Talent (1954). Sympathy for supermen was enhanced by the frequent use of CHILDREN as protagonists, as in SLAN, Children of the Atom, James H. SCHMITZ's The Witches of Karres (1949; exp 1966), Kris NEVILLE's Bettyann (1951-4; fixup 1970) and George O. SMITH's The Fourth"R" (1959; vt The Brain Machine 1968). (A cautionary note was sounded by Jerome BIXBY's"It's a Good Life" [1953], in which a superchild institutes a reign of terror directed towards the gratification of his every infantile whim.) Physically afflicted supermen were occasionally employed to the same sympathy-seeking end, as in Theodore STURGEON's"Maturity" (1947) and John BRUNNER's THE WHOLE MAN (fixup 1964; vt Telepathist 1965). Sometimes during this period there were secret organizations of criminal supermen fighting against the good supermen, as in James BLISH's Jack of Eagles (1951; rev vt ESP-er 1958) and George O. Smith's Highways in Hiding (1956; cut vt Space Plague 1957), but even where the superman appears to be used as an outright figure of menace, as in Frank M. ROBINSON's The Power (1956), the good guy may only be waiting for his own latent superpowers to develop in order to bring about that menace's defeat. Similar leap-frogging accounts of confrontation include Jack VANCE's"Telek" (1951) and Theodore Sturgeon's"... and my fear is great..." (1953). The everyone-can-be-superman motif reached its ultimate expression in Poul ANDERSON's Brain Wave (1954), in which the Earth passes out of a zone of cosmic distortion which has been damping potential intelligence throughout history, so that even idiots and animals get smart. The attractiveness of the motif is exploited to the full by comics SUPERHEROES like SUPERMAN and CAPTAIN MARVEL , whose superness is concealed by mild-mannered"secret identities". Superhero COMICS were popular throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and enjoyed subsequent boom periods in the 1960s-following the resurgence of MARVEL COMICS, whose heroes were more morally ambiguous, suffering wildly exaggerated versions of teenage Angst and alienation-and in the 1980s, when GRAPHIC NOVELS lent the format a new respectability, and when comic-book superheroes spilled over into narrative fiction in George R.R. MARTIN's WILD CARDS series of"mosaic novels" (fixups 1986 onwards) and in the Temps series created by Neil GAIMAN, Alex Stewart (1st vol 1991) et al.L. Ron Hubbard is by no means the only cult-creator to have sold a pseudo-scientific or quasireligious version of this motif. Many other contemporary cults offer their members supposed opportunities to cultivate transcendental powers as well as arcane knowledge. The idea of the superman, and its development in fiction, has always been entangled with religious notions of transcendence and personal salvation ( ESCHATOLOGY), and the achievement of superpowers in sf stories frequently recalls transcendental imagery of various kinds. In extreme cases it comes to resemble an apotheosis. The transcendental version of the superman myth is particularly obvious in certain works by Charles L. HARNESS, including Flight into Yesterday (1949; exp 1953; vt The Paradox Men), the memorable novella"The Rose" (1953; title story of coll 1966) and THE RING OF RITORNEL (1968), and it forms the bases of the classic novels MORE THAN HUMAN (fixup 1953) by Theodore Sturgeon and CHILDHOOD'S END (1953) by Arthur C. CLARKE; the former tracks the maturation of a gestalt of misfit superchildren, and their eventual transcendental admission to a community of superminds, while the latter has an entire generation of Earth's children undergoing an apotheosis to fuse with the cosmic mind. The climax of Clarke's novel bears a striking resemblance to the ideas put forward by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) regarding the possible evolutionary future of humanity within a Bergsonian scheme, as expressed in The Future of Man (1959; trans 1964). A similar"cosmic mind" is featured in The Uncensored Man (1964) by Arthur SELLINGS, and superhuman apotheoses are also found in The Infinite Cage (1972) by Keith LAUMER and Tetrasomy Two (1974) by Oscar ROSSITER. Images of transcendental rebirth have likewise become common, as in several novels by Alfred BESTER: THE DEMOLISHED MAN (1953), in which a psychopathic murderer is"cleansed" of his madness; Tiger! Tiger! (1956; vt The Stars My Destination 1957 US), in which the superpowered protagonist moves through time to appear to himself and others as a fire- shrouded vision, and is eventually cleansed in his turn; and The Computer Connection (1974; vt Extro), in which supermen recruit others to their kind by the only process known to them, involving violent death. The survival after death of Ubermensch characters is featured in CAMP CONCENTRATION (1968) by Thomas M. DISCH, I Will Fear No Evil (1971) and Time Enough for Love (1973) by Robert A. HEINLEIN, and Traitor to the Living (1973) by Philip Jose FARMER. Religious imagery is overt in the many works by Robert SILVERBERG which couple the notion of superhumanity with the idea of rebirth, including To Open the Sky (fixup 1967), Downward to the Earth (1970), Nightwings (fixup 1970), Son of Man (1971), The Book of Skulls (1972) and"Born with the Dead" (1974). Silverberg's Dying Inside (1972) is another fantasy of rebirth seen in terms of the loss of a superhuman power; the decline of ephemeral superhumanity is also a powerful motif in the classic FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (1959; exp 1966) by Daniel KEYES. Messianic supermen whose deaths are redemptive appear in the 2 bestselling sf novels of the 1960s, Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961) and Frank HERBERT's DUNE (1965). The transcendence of superhuman figures is by no means always quasi-Christian; the MYTHOLOGY-rooted novels of Roger ZELAZNY delight in examining the existential problems of godlike beings-shaped by the belief systems of, for example, the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and of the Hindus-and the borderline between sf and FANTASY becomes very problematic in such works. A notable recent portrait of transcendental superhumanity, conventionally replete with quasireligious imagery, can be found in Jack Williamson's Firechild (1986).The idea of the superman has in recent times become entangled with ideas of man/machine hybridization and GENETIC ENGINEERING. CYBORG supermen and genetically designed superhumans have become commonplace. The notion of the emergent superhuman appearing in our midst-possibly as a MUTANT product of radiation-is not as significant a motif as it once was, but its various stereotypes continue to crop up. Recent stories of superchildren include David PALMER's Emergence (1984) as well as young-adult novels like Alexander KEY's Escape to Witch Mountain (1968) and Virginia HAMILTON's Justice and Her Brothers (1978), all three of which have sequels, as does a similar novel featuring an older central character, Carole Nelson DOUGLAS's Probe (1985). Timothy ZAHN 's A Coming of Age (1985) is a more sophisticated work in the same vein; Ann MAXWELL's Timeshadow Rider (1986), a pioneering exercise in the sf love story, seems rather more juvenile than the juvenile novels. A more ambivalent view of emergent superchildren is taken in the STRUGATSKI brothers' THE UGLY SWANS (1972; trans 1979). More sober studies in superhuman existentialism include Wyman GUIN's The Standing Joy (1969) and Raymond Z. GALLUN's The Eden Cycle (1974)-although Gallun's later Bioblast (1985) is far more melodramatic. The tradition of Beresford's The Hampdenshire Wonder is belatedly carried forward by George TURNER's Brain Child (1991), and that of Stapledon's A Man Divided by Robert Charles WILSON's The Divide (1990). The idea of emergent superhumanity remains highly significant in the works of Ian WATSON, where it is intricately interwoven with the notion of CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH. Watson rarely imagines the breakthrough to superhumanity as an easy matter, and in such early novels as THE EMBEDDING (1973) and The Jonah Kit (1975) the attempts to achieve it fail, but in The Martian Inca (1977), Alien Embassy (1977), Miracle Visitors (1978) and The Gardens of Delight (1980) advancement is possible; the easier transitions of the light-hearted Converts (1984) are less convincing.It is arguable that no other symbol in sf has evolved quite so dramatically as that of the superman, which has consistently pandered to the simplest and most basic form of human wish-fulfilment while sometimes carrying out far more sophisticated and ingenious analyses of our aspirations and our fears.[BS]See also: PARANOIA. SUPERMAN 1. US COMIC strip created by writer Jerry Siegel (1914- ) and artist Joe Shuster (1914-1992), loosely based on Philip WYLIE's Gladiator (1930). Siegel was an sf fan, creator of several early FANZINES, including Science Fiction (5 issues from Oct 1932), in which illustrations by his friend Shuster had appeared. Their Superman idea was originally - over a period of years - rejected by almost every comics publisher in the USA before he was finally allowed to make his debut in Action Comics, June 1938, published by Detective Comics Inc, later known as DC COMICS; he got his own comic book with Superman Comics in 1939. Shuster and Siegel did not create many of the stories (perhaps just as well, since Shuster's style-though it had a charming simplicity-was very stiff), but their names continued to be used on the title pages. Under the editorship of Mort WEISINGER the series was given a more elaborate background, and was expanded to include additional superbeings and further comic titles. Many writers and artists, including Alfred BESTER, Edmond HAMILTON, Henry KUTTNER and Manly Wade WELLMAN, have contributed to the series, which continues today.As sole survivor of a cataclysm on the planet Krypton, raised from infancy by US fosterparents, the character's dual identity as timid reporter Clark Kent and indestructible crime-fighter Superman has a basic appeal to readers. His dynamic personality has transcended the comics medium to become incorporated into contemporary Western MYTHOLOGY. Storylines have been varied, with themes including time travel, interplanetary journeys, alternate universes, etc., while subplots have been woven around attempts to unmask his secret identity and to engage him amorously.For many years the character became increasingly implausible, leading to his lampooning in Frank MILLER's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), where he appears in one sequence as an a raddled skeleton. DC COMICS began to perceive a need to rationalize the character, most notably through an epic storyline involving many of their characters:"Crisis on Infinite Earths" (1987), written by Marv Wolfman. Artist-writer John Byrne was engaged to take a completely new approach to the characters. In his version, which began publication in Adventures of Superman #424 (Jan 1987; the title had previously been simply Superman), the first step was the elimination from the mythos of all the other SUPERHEROES which had intruded over the years (Superboy, Supergirl, etc.). Superman's powers and abilities were reduced and given specified limits- e.g., he could no longer travel at the speed of light, survive in space longer than he could hold his breath, or travel through time. His long-time sweetheart Lois Lane discovered his secret identity, and the couple are to be married. At the time of writing (mid-1992) the publishers are planning to take them all the way to the altar and then show Superman facing up to the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing.In order to achieve weekly appearance on the newsstands, 4 monthly titles are now published in sequence: Superman, Superman in Action Comics, Adventures of Superman and Superman, the Man of Steel.Superman has been the most influential of sf comics heroes and has inspired many imitations, the most noted being CAPTAIN MARVEL. His adventures have appeared as a syndicated newspaper strip and as the RADIO programme, tv series, serial films and feature films described below. The character's sex life was guyed in Larry NIVEN 's"Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" (1971) and his old age in Superfolks (1977) by Robert Mayer (1939).[JE/RT]2. US animated cartoon series, prod Max Fleischer, dir Dave Fleischer for Paramount, 17 cartoons, Technicolor, 1940-43.3. US RADIO series, usually pitting Superman against criminals, 1940-52.4. Serial film (1948). Columbia. Prod Sam Katzman. Dirs Spencer Bennet, Thomas Carr, starring Kirk Alyn (Superman), Noel Neill, Tommy Bond. 15 episodes; later released (cut to 88 mins) as a feature film.Although the production values were strictly Poverty Row, S was perhaps the most successful film serial ever made. The sequel was Atom Man Vs. Superman (1950), 15-episode serial, Columbia, with much the same cast, in which Lex Luthor the Atom Man (Lyle Talbot) was introduced.5. US tv series (1953-7): The Adventures of Superman . ABC TV. First season (Feb 1953) prod Robert Maxwell, Bernard Luber; from season 2 (Sep 1953) to #6 and last prod Whitney Ellsworth. 104 25min episodes. First 2 seasons b/w, remainder in colour.Superman was played by George Reeves, a former Hollywood leading man who had made his film debut as a suitor of Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind (1939); he had first taken the role in the film Superman and the Mole Men (1951; vt Superman and the Strange People UK), dir Lee Sholem, 67 mins, b/w, in which Superman saves from a lynch mob little glowing troglodytes who have emerged from a deep oil well. With the tv series (one of whose early producers, Robert Maxwell, had also produced on 3 and written and coproduced the 1951 movie) Reeves became typecast in the role; when the series ended (he directed the last 3 episodes himself) he was unable to find further work in films. He committed suicide in 1959, aged 45.Phyllis Coates played Lois Lane in the 1951 film and the first tv season only, being replaced for the rest of the series by Noel Neill, who had played the part in the 2 Columbia serials (4). Other cast members included Jack Larson as Jimmy Olsen and John Hamilton as Perry White.The series was aimed primarily at children and, though mediocre, was extremely popular. Unlike the case in the comic strip, the stories rarely entered the realm of the fantastic: Superman was usually pitted against mundane, often bumbling criminals. 5 theatrical films were recut, each from 3 tv episodes, and released abroad (all 1954) as Superman's Peril, Superman Flies Again, Superman in Exile, Superman and Scotland Yard and Superman and the Jungle Devils.6. Musical/made-for-tv film. A 1966 Broadway musical based on Superman and called It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Superman! was turned into a film for ABC TV in 1975 with David Wilson as Superman. Dir Jack Regas. Script Romeo Miller, based on the musical by Charles Strouse and David Newman.[JB/PN]7. Film (1978). Dovemead/International Film Production. Dir Richard Donner, starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Valerie Perrine, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, Marlon Brando. Screenplay Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton, with Tom Mankiewicz as"creative consultant"; based on a story by Puzo. 143 mins. Colour.Superman's visit to the wide screen was long delayed, but lavishly appointed when it did come. Screen rights to the most famous of SUPERHEROES had been bought by father-and-son producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind. They made S, the sequels SUPERMAN II (1980) and SUPERMAN III (1983) and the spin-off SUPERGIRL (1984), with diminishing box-office returns, after which the rights were resold to Golan and Globus of Cannon Films, who made SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987).Expensive difficulties, largely to do with the flying scenes, delayed S, whose special effects vary from mostly excellent to occasionally awful. On the whole the end product is a triumph (it was awarded a HUGO), confidently walking the tightrope (though it stumbles once or twice) between playing it romantically straight and putting its tongue in its cheek, and much assisted by intelligent performances from Reeve, who plays Superman as a kind of Innocent Abroad, and Kidder, as a Lois Lane whose passion for Superman appears as touchingly erotic. Indeed the Caped Crusader's career is given a resonance with other great US myths, especially his Midwest boyhood, luminously photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth as though in homage to the paintings of Norman Rockwell. Part of the film's success, oddly, may be that it is UK- made, so that its USA is given an attractively foreign, story-book quality. The plot involves arch-villain Lex Luthor (Hackman) threatening to nuke the San Andreas fault, thus sinking West California and making a fortune out of real estate in what will be the new West Coast.8. The 1989-91 tv series SUPERBOY describes Superman's teenage years at university. It was again produced by the Salkinds.[PN]9.Another tv series permiered on ABC tv in the US in 1993, LOIS & CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, (which see for details). [PN]See also: MUSIC. SUPERMAN II Film (1980). Dovemead/International Film Production. Dir Richard Lester, starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, Terence Stamp, Sarah Douglas, Jack O'Halloran, Susannah York. Screenplay Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman (and, as"creative consultant", Tom Mankiewicz) from a story by Puzo. 127 mins. Colour.Originally to be shot back-to-back with SUPERMAN, SII changed directors after conflict between the previous director, Richard Donner, and the producers, Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler. SII as released is perhaps 25% Donner's work and 75% Lester's. Certainly in its pace and its pop-art ironies it seems the work of Lester, maker of, inter alia, the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night (1964). A trio of criminals exiled from the planet Krypton find their way to Earth, which they attempt to take over using their superpowers. Superman, who finally stops them, has first to restore his own powers, lost through his love for Lois Lane. (Apparently the condition of SUPERHERO, like that of priest, requires celibacy.) The protracted finale is choreographed with skilful comic-strip glee: the mythic dignity of the first film is lost, but enough wit takes its place-including the parallel between an impotent Superman and an impotent USA-for the film to be good value. Superman was to be further demystified in SUPERMAN III (1983).[PN]See also: SUPERGIRL; SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE. SUPERMAN III Film (1983). Dovemead/Cantharus/Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Dir Richard Lester, starring Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure, Annette O'Toole, Pamela Stephenson, Robert Vaughn. Screenplay David Newman, Leslie Newman. 125 mins. Colour.Sequel to SUPERMAN (1978) and SUPERMAN II (1980), this is a movie on a more domestic scale, involving Clark Kent returning to the Midwest for a high-school reunion, where he (as opposed to his colourful alter ego) is fallen in love with by hometown girl Lana Lang (O'Toole). Abetted by his computer-genius pawn (Pryor), an evil business tycoon (Vaughn) with conventional world-takeover plans uses synthetic kryptonite to subvert the now thoroughly demystified Superman, who turns bad, broods in bars, tells a woman in distress"Don't expect me to save you, 'cos I don't do that nice stuff any more", but finally has his conscience awakened by a sweet little boy. Closer to its COMIC -strip origins than its 2 predecessors, and broader, SIII's best moments are the opening scenes of escalating chaos, at least equal to Mack Sennett's work. There are good sequences throughout, and it is clearly better than its successors, SUPERGIRL and SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, if less ambitious (and even sillier) than the earlier films.The novelization is Superman III * (1983) by William KOTZWINKLE.[PN] SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE Film (1987). Cannon. Dir Sidney J. Furie, starring Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Mariel Hemingway. Screenplay Lawrence Kohner, Mark Rosenthal, based on a story by Reeve, Kohner. 93 mins. Colour.Superman's death knell, at the box office anyway, was tolled by Cannon's attempt to get more mileage from his exploits after he had been jettisoned by Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Reeve agreed to play the part again only in exchange for co-authoring the original story, hence the anti-nuclear, anti-tabloid-journalism message. He meant well politically, but his disjointed story, which makes sense neither scientifically nor metaphorically (Superman throws nuclear missiles into Sun; evil Nuclear Man is cloned by Lex Luthor from a Superman hair; Superman defeats him by causing eclipse of the Sun and then anticlimactically throws him down chimney), is intensely feeble, as are the special effects.The novelization is Superman IV* (1987) by B.B. Hiller.[PN] SUPERMAN AND SCOTLAND YARD SUPERMAN. SUPERMAN AND THE JUNGLE DEVILS SUPERMAN. SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN SUPERMAN. SUPERMAN AND THE STRANGE PEOPLE SUPERMAN. SUPERMAN FLIES AGAIN SUPERMAN. SUPERMAN IN EXILE SUPERMAN. SUPERMAN'S PERIL SUPERMAN. SUPER MARIO BROS. Film (1993). Lightmotive/Allied Filmmakers in association with Cinergi Productions. Prod Jake Eberts and Roland Joffe; dir Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel; screenplay Parker Bennett &Terry Runte and Ed Solomon based on the concept and characters created by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka of Nintendo; starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Samantha Mathis, Dennis Hopper and Fiona Shaw. 104 mins. Colour.US comedy adventure film based on the hugely popular Japanese computer games, made by Nintendo, starring Mario and Luigi: the Super Mario Brothers. Sixty-five million years ago a meteor struck America in what is now Brooklyn, splitting Earth into two alternate worlds, in one of which the humanoid dominant species has descended from intelligent dinosaurs, the other being our own world. A child from the dinosaur world is hidden in ours by her justifiably worried mother, using a meteor fragment to open a gateway between the two worlds. That child, now a young woman, is Daisy (Mathis), a university student studying dinosaur remains in Brooklyn. When she is kidnapped and returned to her own world, she is followed by two resourceful plumbers, Mario (Hoskins) and his younger brother Luigi (Leguizamo), who have befriended her. King Koopa (Hopper) wants her for the meteor fragment she now wears as a pendant, for with this fragment he can invade our world and take it over by using his DEVOLUTION gun to turn humans into apes. (He has already devolved the old king Bowser, Daisy's father, into fungus.) The movie is not a mere attempt to find cinematic equivalents for the various facets of the original games that have now developed iconic significance for the young, and is surprisingly inventive, though it moves at perhaps too leisurely a pace. Koopa and his sinister but intelligent mistress Lena (Shaw) carry off the acting honours. In this well written but routinely acted and directed film, the well-realized dystopian city of Koopa's world is amusingly like a comic-book version of the city in BLADE RUNNER. [PN] SUPERMARIONATION Gerry and Sylvia ANDERSON. SUPERNATURAL CREATURES Just as it is common in sf to give empirical explanations of ancient myths and stories of the gods ( GODS AND DEMONS; MYTHOLOGY) and to seek a rationale for MAGIC, so too, when sf deals with supernatural creatures, it commonly invokes quasiscientific rationalizations. Sometimes these involve racial memory of unusual but natural creatures, or they may involve MUTANTS (commonly) or abnormal PSYCHOLOGY (occasionally). The sf writer does not, however, wish to demythologize all that is strange to the point of rendering it utterly matter-of-fact. More commonly he or she retains the horror (or the wonder) while rendering it a believable phenomenon of the world we live in. Also, by making the condition of vampirism or lycanthropy, for example, a natural affliction, it is often possible to evoke pity for the MONSTER as well as its victims. 2 stories illustrating this clearly are James BLISH 's"There Shall be no Darkness" (1950) and Richard MATHESON 's I Am Legend (1954). The former is a werewolf story which links lycanthropy with artistic talent, and allows the reader some empathy with the shapeshifting killer; the latter tells of a plague which transforms its victims into vampires, who besiege the one immune left in the city. In both a far-fetched rationale is given, Matheson being particularly ingenious in explaining the traditional stigmata of the vampire in terms of symptoms of an illness.Jack WILLIAMSON wrote an excellent werewolf story, DARKER THAN YOU THINK (1940; exp 1948), in which lycanthropes are seen as members of a distinct race, genetically different from Homo sapiens though superficially identical; the hero who discovers the truth turns out to share this awful but thrilling heritage. This story, like many others of its kind, has a symbolic relationship with split-personality stories like Robert Louis STEVENSON's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), in which the more primitive, amoral, beastlike part of our evolutionary heritage is able to emerge and take on a shape of its own. All such stories can ultimately be traced back to a dualistic view of Man, manifest in Christian doctrine as the idea that humanity on the one hand suffers from Original Sin, but on the other hand has an aspiring spirit which is a gift from God.Guy ENDORE's The Werewolf of Paris (1933) sees lycanthropy as a psychological distortion, perhaps hereditary, and no literal transformation from man to wolf takes place. Similarly Theodore STURGEON's Some of Your Blood (1961) has a tortured and not very dangerous"vampire" who is in fact a psychotic, whose blood-drinking, it gradually emerges, can be traced back to childhood trauma. The protagonist of Gene WOLFE's"The Hero as Werwolf" (1975) is one of the few still-human survivors of a utopian future where the genetically fit have been bred into placidity and health - superhuman sheep, as it were - while the descendants of the abandoned remainder live a tragic, hole-and-corner life, surviving cannibalistically on the super-race responsible for their condition. Whitley STRIEBER's The Wolfen (1978), though primarily a thriller, provides a rigorous cryptozoological rationale for werewolf myths in terms of a perfectly natural animal species, but one that is rare, intelligent, furtive and hence unknown to orthodox taxonomy.Stories of demonic possession, such as John CHRISTOPHER's The Possessors (1965) and many others, are commonly rationalized in terms of PSI POWERS or as a form of parasitism, usually by an alien; several of these stories are discussed in PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS. Familiars are often symbiotes also, as is the case with the sinister little creatures who accompany the"witches" in Fritz LEIBER's GATHER, DARKNESS! (1943; 1950).Many stories of supernatural creatures which appear in supposedly sf collections are in fact straight FANTASY; i. e., the supernatural status of these beings is left unquestioned. UNKNOWN magazine published quite a few stories of this kind, as did WEIRD TALES earlier and The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION later. The latter published the John the Minstrel stories by Manly Wade WELLMAN (probably his best work), whose hero is faced with a variety of supernatural menaces, though occasionally some sf jargon is used to bring them down to earth a little, one of the best being"O Ugly Bird!" (1951); they were collected in Who Fears the Devil? (coll 1963). Ray BRADBURY's"Homecoming" (1946) is a touching story of the one"normal" in a jolly, clannish family of supernaturals. Many supernatural stories of the jokier kind can be found in Theodore COGSWELL's The Wall Around the World (coll 1962) and Avram DAVIDSON's Or All the Seas with Oysters (coll 1962); Davidson was editor of FSF for a period. A number of such stories are collected in Judith MERRIL's lively anthology Galaxy of Ghouls (anth 1955; vt Off the Beaten Orbit 1959), which contains Walter M. MILLER's"Triflin' Man" (1955; vt"You Triflin' Skunk"), in which the demon lover turns out to be an ALIEN, a common explanation for supernatural manifestations.Elves and fairies likewise often turn out to be aliens, as in Clifford D. SIMAK's The Goblin Reservation (1968), or Neanderthal or atavistic survivals, as in several stories discussed in MYTHOLOGY, John BLACKBURN's Children of the Night (1966) among them. Sometimes they merely live on colonized and then forgotten planets, as in Christopher STASHEFF's Warlock series. The creatures out of Greek legend, including several of an apparently supernatural variety, in Roger ZELAZNY's THIS IMMORTAL (1965 FSF as"... And Call me Conrad"; exp 1966) are mutants. C.M. KORNBLUTH's vampire in"The Mindworm" (1950), is a telepathic mutant created by atomic radiation.Unicorns and dragons remain popular, unicorns for some reason being usually allowed to remain mythic while dragons are often rationalized as aliens. Examples of the former occur in Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn (1968), Harlan ELLISON's"On the Downhill Side" (1972) and Mark GESTON's The Siege of Wonder (1976); there are many others. Dragons appear notably in Anne MCCAFFREY's Dragonrider series, Jack VANCE's THE DRAGON MASTERS (1963) and Avram Davidson's Rogue Dragon (1965).Supernatural creatures generally play a prominent role in romantic fantasy, often as symbolic of a wondrousness that may survive in odd, untouched corners of the world while dead in our rational, urbanized, modern civilization. They are, for example, to be found in forms both horrific and lovely in the various LOST WORLDS of A. MERRITT, in practically every story written by Thomas Burnett SWANN, and in SWORD AND SORCERY generally.Ghosts are rather a special case, and are discussed in ESCHATOLOGY. They are reconstructed in the flesh from a reading of human minds by the sentient planet SOLARIS (1961; trans 1970) by Stanislaw LEM; and along with zombies have a very real existence in Robert SHECKLEY's amusing Immortality Delivered (1958; exp vt Immortality, Inc. 1959). Sheckley often plays games with supernatural creatures; he brings nightmares, for example, to life in"Ghost V" (1954), and the hero of"Protection" (1956) has good reason to wish he had never accepted aid from a ghostly alien from another DIMENSION. The poltergeists in Keith ROBERTS's"Boulter's Canaries" (1965) are energy configurations which can do substantial damage in the real world. Nigel KNEALE's entire career in sf cinema and tv was devoted to rationalizing the supernatural, most notably perhaps in the tv serial QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1958-9), where racial memories of the Devil and the Wild Hunt turn out to have been transmitted by Martians. Stories of this kind are not restricted to English-language sf, nor to genre sf. Stanislaw Lem's Sledztwo (1959; trans as The Investigation 1974) is an interesting study of the extent to which the unknown may be susceptible to rational explanation, in a mystery where Scotland Yard is faced with the activities of a ghoul, whose status as either natural or supernatural is difficult to determine.There is a kind of class distinction among the three most popular varieties of supernatural creature to be found in HORROR movies: vampires are aristocratic, drinking only the most refined life essences, usually blood; in Lucy SUSSEX's"God and Her Black Sense of Humour" (1990) it is semen. In the iconography of horror, the vampire stands for SEX. The werewolf, who stands for instability, shapeshifting, lack of self control, is middle-class and lives in a dog-eat-dog world. The zombie or ghoul, who shambles and rots (as, archetypally, in George ROMERO's sf movie The NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD [1968]), is working-class, inarticulate, dangerous, deprived, wishing only to feed on those who are better off; in the iconography of horror the zombie stands for the exploited worker.During the period of the Vietnam War the zombie, both in pure horror and in sf horror, was perhaps the most popular archetype, but since then vampires and werewolves have made a major comeback, often in sf-rationalized form. Witty FEMINIST subtexts appear in Jody SCOTT's vampire satire I, Vampire (1984) and Suzy McKee CHARNAS's HUGO-winning werewolf story"Boobs" (1989), in which the lunar cycle controls menstruation and transformation into werewolf. Tanith LEE's several werewolf stories, including"Wolfland" (1980), Lycanthia, or The Children of Wolves (1981),"Bloodmantle" (1985) and Heart-Beast (1992), also have womanly subtexts;"Bloodmantle" has Red Riding Hood as a kind of victor, as she is again in Angela CARTER's metamorphic FABULATION"The Company of Wolves" (1979), filmed in 1984. Lee's"The Gorgon" (1983), about Medusa, may be one of the finest, simplest, most touching of all supernatural-creature rationalizations.Other sf (or at least sciencefictionalized) tales of vampire and werewolf from recent years include: The Orphan (1980) and its 2 sequels, about a werewolf, by Robert STALLMAN; Vampire Tapestry (coll of linked stories 1980) by Suzy McKee Charnas; Vampire Junction (1984) and Valentine (1992) by S.P. SOMTOW (Somtow Sucharitkul); The Empire of Fear (1988) by Brian STABLEFORD (vampires); Moon Dance (1989) by Somtow again (werewolves); Carrion Comfort (1989) by Dan SIMMONS (vampires); Michael WEAVER's trilogy collected as Wolf-Dreams (omni 1989 UK); Barbara HAMBLY's Those Who Hunt the Night (1988; vt Immortal Blood UK) (vampires); Kim NEWMAN's Bad Dreams (1990) (shapeshifting vampires); The Werewolves of London (1990) and its sequel The Angel of Pain (1991) by Stableford again; and Wolf Flow (1992) by K.W. JETER. Another important vampire title is Nancy Collins' Sunglasses After Dark (1989), and major series have been written by Anne Rice (vampires and mummies) and by Chelsea Quinn YARBRO, with her Saint-Germain series (vampires) from 1978 on. All these books, whose standard is overall rather high, lie somewhere between sf and supernatural horror, none of them fitting purely in one genre or the other, though Stableford quite closely approaches sf in Empire of Fear. With so much work of this sort being produced - the cited texts are merely a fraction of the whole - it almost seems as if a new genre is in the making, not so much pure horror as the semirationalized"horror romance", a kind of half-sister to the SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE.Supernatural horror made other appearances of a more outre kind in the 1980s, three landmarks being Alfred BESTER's Golem 100 (1980) which marries sf, diabolism and depth psychology to produce its supernatural monster from the id; Judith MOFFETT's"The Hob" (1988), in which the hobs or brownies from myth turn out to be exiled aliens, a story later incorporated into THE RAGGED WORLD: A NOVEL OF THE HEFN ON EARTH (fixup 1991); and best of all, perhaps, Tim POWERS's strange fable of the romantic poets, The Stress of Her Regard (1989), which memorably incarnates romantic longings and fears in the partly rationalized figure of the Lamia.[PN]See also: GOLEM; GOTHIC SF; RELIGION. SUPER SCIENCE AND FANTASTIC STORIES SUPER SCIENCE STORIES. SUPER-SCIENCE FICTION US DIGEST-size magazine. 18 bimonthly issues Dec 1956-Oct 1959, published by Headline Publications; ed W.W. Scott. Though S-SF used material by established writers - including 36 stories by Robert SILVERBERG and 10 by Harlan ELLISON, both using pseudonyms as well as their own names - its contents were mediocre. [BS/PN] SUPER SCIENCE NOVELS SUPER SCIENCE STORIES. SUPER SCIENCE STORIES US PULP MAGAZINE. 31 issues, published by Fictioneers, Inc., a subsidiary of Popular Publications; 16 issues Mar 1940-May 1943, 3 of the 1941 issues (Mar-Aug) being under the title Super Science Novels; ed Frederik POHL until Aug 1941, then Alden H. Norton. The magazine was revived by Popular Publications, continuing the old volume numeration, for 15 more issues Jan 1949-Aug 1951, ed Ejler JAKOBSSON, with Damon KNIGHT assistant ed on some issues. In both incarnations the magazine varied between quarterly and bimonthly.SSS, a companion to ASTONISHING STORIES, featured standard pulp adventure sf, and in its 1st incarnation was an important market for the FUTURIAN group, Pohl buying a good deal of material from himself (including many of his early collaborations with C.M. KORNBLUTH). The most notable story was Genus Homo (Mar 1941; rev 1950) by L. Sprague DE CAMP and P. Schuyler MILLER. It also published a number of early stories by Isaac ASIMOV and James BLISH's first story, "Emergency Refueling" (1940), and his much superior "Sunken Universe" (1942) as by Arthur Merlyn. The 2nd incarnation published Chad OLIVER's debut story, "The Land of Lost Content" (1950). SSS had a greater importance to the HISTORY OF SF than the quality of its stories would suggest; it was an important training ground.The Canadian magazine of the same title, published by Popular Publications, Toronto, continued publication for 2 years after the first US version ceased, publishing 21 issues in all Aug 1942-Dec 1945, the last 5 under the title Super Science and Fantastic Stories. From Aug 1942 to Feb 1944 the Canadian SSS drew its material in alternate issues from the US SSS and Astonishing Stories. From the Apr 1944 issue onwards some original stories were used (11 in all), including "The Black Sun Rises" (June 1944) by Henry KUTTNER, but mostly it ran stories from the Popular Publications reprint magazine FAMOUS FANTASTIC MYSTERIES. The 2nd incarnation of SSS was also reprinted in Canada 1949-51, as Super Science Stories. There were 2 series of UK reprints: Thorpe & Porter reprinted 3 whole issues in 1949-50; and Pembertons published 14 consecutively numbered issues of selections from both versions of the US magazine 1950-53. [BS/PN] SUPERSWAMP People may think that the concept of Superman was born on the planet Krypton. But they’re wrong. His birth was directly inspired by a story written by Philip Wylie in 1930 called "The Gladiator."Theodore Sturgeon’s short story, "It," written in 1940, provided the inspiration for another well-known character -The Swamp Thing, a monster entirely made of vegetable matter. The Swamp Thing, created by Len Wein for DC COMICS, became the star of several movies, including Swamp Thing, directed by Wes Craven in 1982 and Swamp Thing II in 1989. SURREALISM ABSURDIST SF; ILLUSTRATION; NEW WAVE. SURVIVALIST FICTION During the near-half century of Cold War after the dropping of the atom bomb on Japan in 1945, nuclear HOLOCAUSTS were a commonplace plot device in various genres of popular fiction. Some novels took readers teasingly up to the brink without actually carrying them into the terminal moments; Cold War thrillers of this sort are not generally treated in this encyclopedia. A rather larger number of novels treated the final war as a given, an assumed premise of the action of the tale, which took place subsequent to the horror of the actual event. One subgenre of this sizeable cohort of post-holocaust novels usually goes by the name survivalist fiction.Though it takes much of its political extremism and attendent social prejudices from the genuine survivalist movement which flourished in the USA during the Cold War (see also LIBERTARIAN SF), survivalist fiction as such has little to do with the actual concerns of real survivalists, who tend to concentrate most of their energies on exercises and training and hoarding and forward-planning for the anticipated event; less thought is given to the aftermath, where survivalist fictions are almost invariably set. The significance of genuine survivalists is of the here and now, as an example of the pathos of "self-reliance" in a world too complex and fragile to reward simple solutions.Of greater potential interest to sf writers than realist stories about survivalists is, perhaps, the apocalypse pathology ( RELIGION; ESCHATOLOGY) detectable in the survivalist mentality. Those who live their lives in anticipation of surviving the holocaust are almost certainly geared to welcome its coming, and to feel that - by contrast with the civilian hordes who ignore the tenets of the faith - they comprise an Elect ( SUPERMAN) of true believers; and, typical of that form of psychopathy, demonstrate extreme agility in shifting the focus of their love or hate when conditions so demand - hence the 1990s shift of American survivalists' loathing from Cold War enemies to the Federal government. Survivalists, in other words, run the risk of seeing the holocaust as a test of Faith: of feeling virtuous about the END OF THE WORLD. A novel like Robert A. HEINLEIN's Farnham's Freehold (1964), though displaced through TIME TRAVEL beyond the normal boundaries of survivalist fiction, does convey the extremist mind-set of some participants in the movement, and the "Darwinian" ruthlessness they long to ape. But Farnham's Freehold is a tale of wish-fulfilment; the actualities of survival are clearly so unrewarding when faced directly that almost all sf which deals with nuclear holocaust directly treats its human protagonists as doomed. There is, in fact, almost no genuine sf that describes a genuine survivalist agenda without descending into fantasy; even Dean ING's Pulling Through (1983), which is a good example of an extremely rare breed, has recourse to a magic sports car which enables the protagonist to leap over some otherwise terminal obstacles. Andrew J. OFFUTT's The Castle Keeps (1972) is a scathing analysis of the effects of survivalist doctrines in any plausible post-holocaust world.There are of course many sf tales of survivors (like Gordon R. DICKSON's attractive Wolf and Iron [1990]) and post-holocaust stories whose protagonists are oppressed (as in Chelsea Quinn YARBRO's False Dawn [1978]) by predators whose resemblance to survivalists may not be accidental; but survivalist fiction is something very different from tales like these. From about 1980, survivalist fiction has become established as a very particular kind of male-action story, set in post-holocaust venues where law-and-order has disappeared, and where there is effectively no restraint upon the behaviour of the hero, who therefore kills before he is killed, demonstrating his fitness to survive through acts of unbridled violence (which very frequently descend into prolonged sessions of rape and sadism). The first full-blown example of the subgenre is probably the Survivalist series by Jerry AHERN, which began with Survivalist #1: Total War (1981) and which now extends to more than 20 volumes. A second important open-ended series (survivalist fiction, like pornography, tends to be structured as a series of escalating repetitions of the same material) is William W. JOHNSTONE's Ashes sequence from 1983, in which an extreme right-wing political agenda is used to legitimize the hero's actions. Other sequences include David ALEXANDER's Phoenix books, James BARTON's Wasteworld books, D.B. Drumm's Traveler books (initiated by Ed NAHA, though some or most of the sequence was by John SHIRLEY), Bob HAM's Overload books, Laurence JAMES's Death Land books as by James Axler, Mack MALONEY's Wingman books, Victor MILAN's Guardians books as by Richard Austin, David L. ROBBINS's Endworld books, James ROUCH's Zone books, some episodes in Barry SADLER's Casca sequence, and the Doomsday Warrior books written as by Ryder Stacy ( Ryder SYVERTSEN). To this list could be added MAD MAX (1979) and its sequels, although these are at the top of the heap; the same cannot be said of their cheap imitators. During 1992 several book series were terminated due to declining sales; it may be that the changing world scene had reduced their appeal.There may be some connection between present-day survivalist movements in the USA and survivalist fiction as here described, in that survivalist fiction may seem to express a grotesquely decayed form of Heinleinian relish at the defeat of "civilian" values when the "real" world bares its teeth. But even this is to claim too much. Sadistic, sexist, racist, pornographic, gloating and void, survivalist fiction is an obscene parody of genuine survivalism, and a nightmare at the bottom of the barrel of sf. [JC]See also: PARANOIA. SURVIVORS UK tv series (1975-7). BBC TV. Created Terry NATION (who also wrote 7 episodes in season 1). Prod Terence Dudley. Writers included Jack Ronder, Martin Worth, Roger Parkes. Dirs included Pennant Roberts, Terence Williams, Eric Hills. 3 seasons, 38 50min episodes in all. Colour.The post- HOLOCAUST novel is a particularly UK subgenre of sf, and so it is not surprising that the theme's first significant appearance on tv should come from the BBC. The accidental release of a deadly virus kills almost everyone; in the UK only about 7000 people are left alive. S follows the adventures of small groups of mostly middle-class survivors, their efforts to cope without TECHNOLOGY and their encounters with other, less sympathetic groups. The main characters include a housewife (Carolyn Seymour), a secretary (Lucy Fleming), an engineer (Ian McCulloch) and an architect (Denis Lill). Initial gloom is gradually replaced by rather too cosy an atmosphere, with aspects of a rural paradise - not only have all those smelly cities disappeared, but also the working classes. The subtext involves a very English political myth (which in literature goes back beyond Richard JEFFERIES's After London [1885]) about the strengths of a life lived close to the land. The overnight disappearance of technology and in particular the shortage of petrol are never adequately rationalized. Nation's partial novelization is The Survivors * (1976). [JB/PN] SUSANN, JACQUELINE (1921-1974) US writer most famous for her first novel, Valley of theDolls (1966); her only sf novel is the posthumous Yargo (1979), which, written in the 1950s, and telling the tale of alover from the stars who wins the heart of an Earth woman, rather lacks JS's later books'acidulous presentation of the costs of indulgence and self-absorption. [JC] SUSPENDED ANIMATION The notion of suspended animation is one of the oldest literary devices in sf, by virtue of its convenience as a means of TIME TRAVEL into the future (see also SLEEPER AWAKES). It is used in UTOPIAN romances like L.S. MERCIER's Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred (trans 1772), Mary GRIFFITH's Three Hundred Years Hence (1836; 1975) and Edward BELLAMY's Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888). It became somewhat more than a literary convenience in H.G. WELLS's When the Sleeper Wakes (1899; rev vt The Sleeper Awakes 1910). These stories, having other purposes in view, gloss over the scientific means by which suspended animation might be achieved. Edgar Allan POE's short story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845) features mesmerically induced suspended animation, while Grant ALLEN's "Pausodyne" (1881) imagines an 18th-century scientist inventing a gas which puts him into protracted anaesthesia. The most popular means, however, has always been preservation by freezing ( CRYONICS). Many fantasies using the theme were inspired by the ancient Egyptian habit of mummifying the dead; it was a relatively small imaginative step to suppose an arcane mummification process which preserved life and beauty, and Egyptian princesses ripe for revival are featured in Edgar Lee's Pharaoh's Daughter (1889), Clive Holland's An Egyptian Coquette (1898; rev vt The Spell of Isis) and Robert W. CHAMBERS's The Tracer of Lost Persons (1906); a very much more recent example is Anne Rice's The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned (1989). The modern world is visited by observers preserved from even more remote eras in Erle COX's Out of the Silence (1919; 1925; exp 1947), Olof W. ANDERSON's The Treasure-Vault of Atlantis (1925) and Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's "The Resurrection of Jimber Jaw" (1937). A curious novel which explores the existential significance of the ability to suspend animation in oneself is The Insurgents (1957) by VERCORS; and Robert A. HEINLEIN intricately constructs The Door into Summer (1957) around 2 trips to a single future by suspended animation.Suspended animation was co-opted into GENRE SF as one of the standard items in its vocabulary of ideas; it was used in the first extensive pulp exploration of future HISTORY, Laurence MANNING's The Man who Awoke (1933; fixup 1975). Genre-sf writers found it a useful device in another context: avoiding the intolerable timelags involved in journeys to the stars. An early trip of this kind is featured in A.E. VAN VOGT's "Far Centaurus" (1944), whose luckless heroes arrive to find that FASTER-THAN-LIGHT travel has been invented as they slept. More recent dramas involving ships populated largely by people in suspended animation include The Black Corridor (1969) by Michael MOORCOCK and Hilary BAILEY and The Dream Millennium (1974) by James WHITE. Stranger beings than Cox's or Olof W. Anderson's Atlanteans could be found in suspended animation, in a manner reminiscent of supernatural stories in which ancient GODS and their dormant MAGIC are revived into the present by folly or evil intent. The later work of H.P. LOVECRAFT is notable in this respect, while more orthodox sf variations on the theme include The Alien (1951) by Raymond F. JONES, World of Ptavvs (1966) by Larry NIVEN and The Space Vampires (1976) by Colin WILSON.The recent popularization of cryonics as a means of suspending animation has offered a boost to the credibility of the jargon surrounding the literary device, and has helped increase interest in alternative methods. These include the various works ultimately gathered into The Worthing Saga (1978-89; fixup 1990) by Orson Scott CARD and the fascinating Between the Strokes of Night (1985) by Charles SHEFFIELD, which takes the notion to its logical extreme. Its deployment as a timeslipping device is nowadays less frequent, but the motif is still capable of further sophistication, as shown in Richard Ben SAPIR's visitor-from-the-past story The Far Arena (1978) and Richard LUPOFF's FAR-FUTURE story Sun's End (1984). [BS]See also: IMMORTALITY; GENERATION STARSHIPS; MEDICINE. SUSPENSE US DIGEST-size magazine. 4 quarterly issues Spring 1951-Winter 1952, published by Farrell Publishing Co., Chicago; ed Theodore Irwin. S, based on the CBS RADIO series of the same name and including the script of 1 episode per issue, contained also a mixture of detective, weird, sf and fantasy stories, including some reprints. Authors included Theodore STURGEON and John WYNDHAM, and there was a new Gray Mouser story from Fritz LEIBER, "Dark Vengeance" (Fall 1951). The unusual mixing of genres may have accounted for S's rapid demise. [FHP/PN] SUSSEX, LUCY (1957- ) New Zealand-born writer and critic, in AUSTRALIA since the age of 14. She was one of the co-editors of the anthology of sf criticism Contrary Modes (anth 1985) with Jenny Blackford, Russell BLACKFORD and Norman Talbot, and a co-editor of AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: SECOND SERIES for its first 2 years (1986-7). At about the same time she began publishing promising sf FABULATIONS like "The Lipton Village Society" (1985), about alienated people creating an ALTERNATE WORLD by force of will. This and "My Lady Tongue" (1988), about life inside (and outside) a utopian FEMINIST lesbian community, and "God and Her Black Sense of Humour" (1990), about immortal semen-swallowing vampires ( SUPERNATURAL CREATURES), are assembled with others in My Lady Tongue & Other Tales (coll 1990). LS's racy, slangy narrative voice sometimes jars with a content that seems to require a less aggressive tone. Her earlier The Peace Garden (1989), for children, is not sf or fantasy. [PN] SUTCLIFFE, HALLIWELL [r] Jocelyn QUILP. SUTPHEN, (WILLIAM GILBERT) VAN TASSEL (1861-1945) US writer whose The Nineteenth Hole: Being Tales of the Fair Green: Second Series (coll 1901) includes 2 tales of golfing sf ( GAMES AND SPORTS), one set in 1999 when the game fully dominates US life. The Doomsman (1906) depicts a medievalized post- HOLOCAUST USA where dashing Doomsmen run a protection racket from Manhattan and an old priest keeps an electric dynamo humming. All ends in tears. [JC/PN] SUTTON, JEAN (1915-1983) US author, with Jeff SUTTON (whom see for details), of several novels for older children. [JC] SUTTON, JEFF(ERSON HOWARD) (1913-1979) US writer who began publishing sf with "The Third Empire" for Spaceway in 1955, and whose background - he had been a journalist, served time in the Marines and done research in high-altitude survival - was reflected in several of his novels, from First on the Moon (1958), his debut, to Spacehive (1960) and Whisper from the Stars (1970). JS wrote with a somewhat dilute clarity, his tales occasionally rising above the routine when he dealt in NEAR-FUTURE subject matter; but even these stories soon became fatally dated. When he attempted more far-flung adventures his inspiration tended to flag and his plots to become strained. His juvenile sf novels (see listing below) with his wife, Jean SUTTON, were somewhat smoother. [JC]Other works: Bombs in Orbit (1959); The Missile Lords (1963); The Atom Conspiracy (1963); Apollo at Go (1963); Beyond Apollo (1966); H-Bomb over America (1967); The Man who Saw Tomorrow (1968 dos); Alton's Unguessable (1970 dos); The Mindblocked Man (1972); Cassady (1979).With Jean Sutton: The River (1966); The Programmed Man (1968); The Beyond (1968); Lord of the Stars (1969); Alien from the Stars (1970); The Boy who had the Power (1971).See also: CHILDREN'S SF. SUVIN, DARKO (R.) (1932- ) Academic, sf critic and poet, born and raised in that part of YUGOSLAVIA that is now Croatia; PhD from Zagreb University, where he taught 1959-67; since 1968 he has lived in CANADA (until 1991 he had Canadian/Yugoslav dual nationality), where he is a full professor of English at McGill University, Montreal. DS has been very closely associated with the development of academic interest in sf in the USA, having been an active member of the SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION and a co-editor of SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES from its inception to Nov 1980 (subsequently a contributing editor), and having lectured and published widely on the subject. (His other field is drama, especially the work of Bertolt Brecht.) His books about sf are Od Lukijana do Lunjika ["From Lucian to the Lunik"] (1965 Yugoslavia), Russian Science Fiction 1956-1974: A Bibliography (1976 US); Pour une poetique de la science-fiction (cut and trans into French from his original English by DS 1977; longer English version as Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre 1979 US), Victorian Science Fiction in the U.K.: The Discourses of Knowledge and of Power (1983 US)-perhaps his most important book, in its splendid blend of scholarly research into early sf, explication of its nature and sociological argument about its ideological setting - and Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction (coll 1988 US).The last 3 books especially constitute (among other things) one of the most formidable and sustained theoretical attempts to define sf as a genre. This was recognized when he was awarded the 1979 PILGRIM AWARD, while still very much in mid-career, for services to sf scholarship. DS's writing has been unwisely dismissed by some readers as too clotted and difficult, and it is true that his critical prose sometimes seems more convoluted than his arguments require. But part of the difficulty results from the praiseworthy scrupulousness and rigour of his complex theses, for which he has had to find a terminology (new to sf studies at least) that is very much based in European socio-formalism; he has often been described as a "Marxist" critic but, while this is not untrue, it is not especially helpful either, as modern structuralism and semiotics also play an important role in his theoretical approach. DS sees sf as a "literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment" ( DEFINITIONS OF SF); it was DS who introduced the term "cognition" to sf criticism. One result of DS's approach is a contemptuous dismissal of FANTASY as lacking "cognitive believability".DS ed Other Worlds, Other Seas: Science-Fiction Stories from Socialist Countries (anth 1970 US), H.G. Wells and Modern Science Fiction (anth 1977 US), a collection of essays by various hands, and, with R.D. MULLEN, Science-Fiction Studies: Selected Articles on Science Fiction 1973-1975 (anth 1976 US) and Science-Fiction Studies, Second Series: Selected Articles on Science Fiction 1976-1977 (anth 1978 US), both from GREGG PRESS.Of marginal relevance to sf and UTOPIAS are DS's 2 vols of poems, some prize-winning: The Long March: Notes on the Way 1981-1984 (coll 1987) and Armirana Arkadija (coll 1990 Yugoslavia). [PN]See also: BIBLIOGRAPHIES; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; GENRE SF; GOTHIC SF; HISTORY OF SF; PROTO SCIENCE FICTION; SENSE OF WONDER. SWAHN, SVEN CHRISTER [r] SCANDINAVIA. SWAIN, DWIGHT V(REELAND) (1915-1992) US writer, very variously employed in jobs ranging from migrant labourer to university lecturer to scriptwriter. His first sf story, "Henry Horn's Super Solvent" for Fantastic Adventures in 1941, initiated the Henry Horn series of tales about a bumblingly incompetent would-be SCIENTIST; the others are "Henry Horn's Blitz Bomb" (1942), "Henry Horn's Racing Ray" (1942) and "Henry Horn's X-Ray Eye Glasses" (1942). He also wrote 3 stories in 1942 as Clark South. DVS published several sf novels up to the end of the 1950s which did not reach book form, the exception being The Transposed Man (1955 chap dos; with 1 story added, as coll 1957 UK), in which a human rebel wins through to the stars. In his later career, during which he concentrated on his work in educational film-making - also publishing several nonfiction books on the art of successful writing, including Creating Characters: How to Build Story People (1990) - DVS returned occasionally to adventure tales of the sort he clearly preferred, writing 1 Nick CARTER novel, The Pemex Chart * (1979), and 2 further tales, The Planet Murderer (1984) as John CLEVE (in collaboration with Andrew J. OFFUTT), and Monster (1991).In 1991, the Oklahoma Professional Writers' Hall of Fame named him a "grand master", along with C.J. CHERRYH. [JC] SWAMP THING, THE Created by writer Len Wein and artist Berni Wrightson in DC COMICS's House of Secrets #92 (July 1971), TST is a monster whose moss-and muck-encrusted body is formed entirely of vegetable matter. In that original short graphic story, as a result of a scientific "accident" arranged by his jealous assistant Damian Ridge, Dr Alex Olsen is killed and subsequently resurrected in mutated form as TST, destined to wreak vengeance. Wein and Wrightson rewrote the character's early biography in the Swamp Thing series of COMIC books for DC, running from #1 (Nov 1972) until July 1974. According to the revised version, the unfortunate Dr Alec Holland (note name-change) was working on a "Bio-restorative Formula" when an explosion in his laboratory set off the chain of events described above. These 10 issues (reprinted as Roots of the Swamp Thing Aug-Nov 1986) are regarded in the comics world as classics of GOTHIC horror.In May 1982 TST began to reappear in another comic-book series, Saga of the Swamp Thing. In this version he initially developed as a SUPERHERO of no great interest, but #20, Loose Ends, introduced Alan MOORE as writer. Moore continued until #64 and, with artists Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Rick Veitch and others, attained what is usually accepted to be his greatest achievement to date (with the possible exception of WATCHMEN). Moore's themes - including menstrual werewolves, serial killers, racial zombies and, in a swipe at the gun-lobby, a house haunted by guns - were wide-ranging, and he radically changed the basic premise: TST was now a MONSTER who had incorporated through RNA some of Alex Holland's personality. Moore also introduced significant ECOLOGY and ESCHATOLOGY themes, latterly taking TST into a series of SPACE OPERA adventures. From #30 DC found it necessary to drop the Comics Code logo from the cover, replacing it with the words "Sophisticated Suspense"; at the same time the title reverted to the original Swamp Thing. Since Moore's departure the scripts have rarely reached the same quality.There have been 2 Swamp Thing films: Swamp Thing (1982) dir Wes Craven, 91 mins, and its chaotic spoof sequel, the occasionally hilarious The Return of Swamp Thing (1989; vt Swamp Thing II) dir Jim Wynorski, 88 mins. Both films, neither very successful, star stuntman Dick Durock as the monster and Louis Jourdan as his conniving foe, Dr Arcane. [RT] SWAN AMERICAN MAGAZINE UK magazine, PULP-MAGAZINE size, published by G.G. Swan, London. The 2 (undated) sf issues in the series, #11 (probably 1948) and #15 (probably 1949), were resettings with UK illustrations of parts of Future Fantasy and Science Fiction (a variant title of FUTURE FICTION), Dec 1942, and of SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY, Winter 1942. This was effectively a postwar renewal, with new numbering, of the earlier SWAN YANKEE MAGAZINE series. [FHP] SWANN, S. ANDREW (? - ) US writer of a sequence of sf noir detective novels set in a world where GENETICALLY ENGINEERED animals-called "moreaus" after H.G. WELLS's THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1896), and also evocative of the evolved animals in Cordwainer SMITH's Instrumentality of Man-have been bred to occupy underclass roles in NEAR-FUTURE America. The sequence to date comprises Forests of the Night (1993), after William Blake, and in honour of the fact that the detective protagonist of the series comes from tiger stock, Emperors of the Twilight (1994) and Specters of the Dawn (1994). A second series, set in the same world but centuries later, begins with Profiteer (1995). [JC] SWANN, THOMAS BURNETT (1928-1976) US poet, novelist and academic who taught English literature at Florida Atlantic University, turning to full-time writing in the early 1960s. As an academic he published works on the poet HD (Hilda Doolittle [1886-1961]) and others, including Wonder and Whimsy: The Fantastic World of Christina Rossetti (1960). Much of his fiction - beginning with "Winged Victory" for Fantastic Universe in 1958 - could be described as SCIENCE FANTASY, as it posits a sustained ALTERNATE-WORLD version of Earth's history; but its abiding tenor is of FANTASY. Briefly, the TBS version of history centres on the doomed encounter of the SUPERNATURAL CREATURES of legend - dryads, centaurs, panisci, minotaurs, et al. - with ascendant humanity, climaxing at the time when Rome and Christianity were extending their imperialisms across the doomed, childlike, prelapsarian world. Most of his tales - all set well before the alternate 20th century, which TBS clearly found impossible to imagine - fit into this history. In order of their internal chronology they are: The Minikins of Yam (1976), set around 2500BC; the Minotaur sequence, comprising Cry Silver Bells (1977), The Forest of Forever (1971) and The Day of the Minotaur (1966), set in Mycenaean Crete; the Mellonia sequence, comprising Queens Walk in the Dusk (1977), Green Phoenix (1972) and Lady of the Bees (1962 Science Fantasy as "Where is the Bird of Fire?"; exp 1976), set in burgeoning Rome; Wolfwinter (1972), The Weirwoods (1967) and The Gods Abide (1976), the 3 novels in which humanity's religious and political destruction of the old ways reaches a climax; and a final scattering of nostalgia-choked tales set in the Christian era, The Tournament of Thorns (fixup 1976), Will-o-the-Wisp (1976 UK), The Not-World (1975) and The Goat without Horns (1971). This litany of dying falls evoked a warm response from fantasy and sf readers, a response not dissimilar to that evoked by the ecological sf that began to appear around the same time ( ECOLOGY). TBS's early works are generally stronger than the late books, where a finger-pointing sentimentality tends to vitiate all but the most fleeting moments of loss. [JC]Other works: The Dolphin and the Deep (coll 1968); Moondust (1968); Where is the Bird of Fire? (coll 1970); How are the Mighty Fallen (1974).About the author: Thomas Burnett Swann: A Brief Critical Biography and Annotated Bibliography (1979 chap) by Robert A. Collins.See also: GODS AND DEMONS; MYTHOLOGY. SWANSON, LOGAN Richard MATHESON. SWANWICK, MICHAEL (JENKINS) (1950- ) US writer who began to publish sf with "The Feast of St Janis" for New Dimensions 11 (anth 1980) ed Marta RANDALL and Robert SILVERBERG, and who became known, very rapidly, as an author of intensely crafted, complex tales whose multiple layering allows his conventional sf plots and venues to be understood as exercises in mythopoesis, somewhat after the manner of Gene WOLFE's shorter works, though less perplexingly. MS was not prolific in the 1980s, but his short fiction - assembled as GRAVITY'S ANGELS (coll 1991) - ran a wide gamut, from "The Man who Met Picasso" (1982), a slightly sentimental fable of redemption, to "Ginungagap" (1980), a HARD-SF tale set in the ASTEROID belt whose imagery and language comprehensively prefigure CYBERPUNK; the more recent "A Midwinter's Tale" (1988), though making nods to both Wolfe and A.E. VAN VOGT, seems in the end to be written in MS's mature voice - warm, cruel, contemplative, moral.His 5 novels show a steady progress towards that voice. In the Drift (fixup 1985), set in an ALTERNATE WORLD in which Three Mile Island did in fact explode, describes its post- HOLOCAUST balkanized USA through a series of linked episodes which ultimately fail to cohere sufficiently, so that the transcendental implications of the final sequences seem forced. Vacuum Flowers (1987), which builds upon the world foreshadowed in "Ginungagap", very much more cogently combines a tour-of-the-Solar-System plot-carrying the reader downward from the corporation-dominated asteroid belt to an AI-run Earth - with a dense load of extrapolation about the nature of identity when persona-chips can be bought and plugged in. The protagonist, a persona bum who has hijacked an attractive new identity for herself, runs an extremely complex gamut before turning-perhaps inevitably in MS's work - towards transcendence. Griffin's Egg (1991 UK) applies his by-now-expected multiplex extrapolations to the NEAR FUTURE in a tale set on the MOON - controlled by corporations - during a period when Earth seems at the edge of self-destruction, and a long cold hegira may be in store for any survivors of the HOLOCAUST. The titles of both these novels serve as metaphors for the evolving human species and as banners to proclaim the continuation of the species under new conditions.Unlike his first 3 books, STATIONS OF THE TIDE (1991), which won a NEBULA, takes place centuries hence and far from Earth, on a planet quarantined from the higher technologies now controlled by a far-flung humanity. After a Prometheus/Caliban figure has stolen some of these technologies from the interstellar network that monitors quarantine, the protagonist descends to the planet, which is due to suffer a vast periodic climatic transformation, traces the "thief", and apprehends what it is necessary for him to apprehend - the knowledge, the meaning of life on the planet, the meaning of his own existence, and a sense of how best (he is a Prospero figure) to relieve himself of power and servants. The complexity of this brief, dense, and fast-moving book is very considerable; and the interstellar network - whose HQ takes the shape of a Renaissance Theatre of Memory - is convincing in its own right and as a focus for MS's continued speculations about the refractions of identity in a world where autonomous subset personality-copies held on computers (they resemble the "partials" in Greg BEAR's EON [1985]) do much of the work of being human. The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993 UK), a fantasy, taxingly examines human action (and guilt) in fantasy worlds themselves taxingly examined. In the 1980s "debate" between "humanists" and cyberpunks, MS was variously associated with one or both "schools". In the end-like the similarly treated Kim Stanley ROBINSON-he was not so easily assimilated. The most telling thing to say about MS is that he is fiercely contemporary. [JC]See also: ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; ARKHAM HOUSE; END OF THE WORLD; GAMES AND SPORTS; GOTHIC SF; INTERZONE; ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE; MYTHOLOGY; NANOTECHNOLOGY; NUCLEAR POWER; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM; POSTMODERNISM AND SF; SPACE HABITATS; THEODORE STURGEON MEMORIAL AWARD. SWAN YANKEE MAGAZINE UK magazine, PULP-MAGAZINE size, published by G.G. Swan, London. There were 3 sf and 3 weird-fiction issues in the series. The sf numbers were #3 (1941), #11 (1942) and #21 (1942), the weird numbers #6 (1942), #14 (1942) and #19 (1942). Despite the title, SYM contained mostly original UK stories, with a few US reprints. The sf titles were marketed as Yankee Science Fiction. [FHP] SWARM, THE Irwin ALLEN; Arthur HERZOG. SWAYNE, MARTIN Perhaps the pseudonym of UK writer and psychologist H(enry) Maurice D(unlop) Nicoll (1884-1953). In The Blue Germ (1918) well wishing scientists infect the world with a virus that turns folk immortal, lethargic and blue. After the psychological effects of IMMORTALITY have played direly upon the cast, the novel ends with the hope, or fear, that the virus has burned itself out. [JC] SWEDEN SCANDINAVIA. SWEDENBORG, EMANUEL (1688-1772) Swedish scientist, philosopher and theologian. The first half of his career was devoted to investigations into a number of scientific fields, from mathematics and physics to geology; in 1743-5 he underwent a visionary experience, after which most of his writings became mystical. These later writings, which influenced the UK poet William Blake (1757-1827) and the German idealist philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and were an important forerunner to the Romantic movement, included Arcana Caelestia (1749-56 in Latin; trans John Clowes in 13 vols as Arcana Coelestia, or Heavenly Mysteries Contained in the Sacred Scriptures 1802-16 UK), perhaps his magnum opus, and De Telluribus (1758 in Latin; trans John Clowes as Concerning the Earths in Our Solar System, Which are Called Planets, and Concerning the Earths in the Starry Heaven; Together with an Account of their Inhabitants 1787 UK). This latter volume, commonly known as The Earths in Our Solar System . . . and the Earths in the Starry Heaven, describes a visionary trip around the Solar System, which is seen (in part through a system of correspondences) as having a spiritual significance; the book also contains some scientific speculation about the planets. After his death, ES's followers founded the New Jerusalem Church to promote his doctrines. [PN/JC]See also: COSMOLOGY; MARS; MERCURY; OUTER PLANETS; PROTO SCIENCE FICTION; RELIGION; STARS; VENUS. SWEET, DARRELL (1934- ) US illustrator. His first sf/fantasy work was for BALLANTINE BOOKS, and when that publisher formed the new DEL REY BOOKS imprint in 1977 DS became their main cover artist, his ILLUSTRATION being strongly associated with their Jack L. CHALKER covers. His style works especially well with fantasy books: his delicate women emphasize their fantasy, and his earthy men give a sense of reality to unreal scenes. His colourful style is reminiscent, sometimes, of the PULP-MAGAZINE covers of the 1940s, especially his monsters. He works mainly with acrylics. [JG/PN] SWENSON, PEGGY Richard E. GEIS. SWEVEN, GODFREY Pseudonym of New Zealand writer and professor of English John Macmillan Brown (1846-1935), Chancellor of the University of NEW ZEALAND from 1923. Both his fiction and his nonfiction deal almost exclusively with the South Pacific. Of sf interest is his 2-part Antarctic UTOPIA, published as Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles (1901 US) and Limanora: The Island of Progress (1903 US; rev 1931 UK), in which an ethereal man with artificial wings is shot down in the South Pacific but survives - he's British - to recount his long trek through a mist-enshrouded group of ISLANDS, each of them exemplifying different modes of existence, until he finds himself in the scientific utopia of Limanora, which GS anatomizes in extraordinary detail. Here he is physically and psychologically reconstructed. [JC]See also: HISTORY OF SF. SWIFT, JONATHAN (1667-1745) Irish satirist, poet and cleric. His most famous work, perhaps the most important of all works of PROTO SCIENCE FICTION, is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in Four Parts . . . by Lemuel Gulliver (1726; rev 1735), better known today as Gulliver's Travels. The work is in part pure sf, and certainly makes use of and in some cases invents narrative strategies which are now basic to sf; its influence, both direct and indirect, on subsequent sf has been enormous, as for example on H.G. WELLS's The Island of Dr Moreau (1896). In each of its 4 books Captain Gulliver finds himself marooned in an ALIEN culture. JS's SATIRE has two main forms: sometimes the culture in which he finds himself reflects aspects of British society in an exaggerated manner, so as to reveal its absurdities, and sometimes - more interestingly to sf readers - it is the differences between alien societies and ours which serve by contrast to make us see our own culture from a new perspective. This latter technique predominates in Book IV, "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms", in which Gulliver finds himself stranded in a society of intelligent horses, who do not (for example) understand such concepts as war, the telling of untruths, or sexual passion. The details of their culture are more convincing than was commonly the case with satire of this kind, and the satire itself more complex. Although the story is often read as a forceful attack on mankind - the brutish Yahoos who live there are in fact humans - a more interesting reading, and one more readily supported from the text, is that Gulliver's admiring description of the life of pure intellect is part of Swift's ironic strategy, and that the reader is to see the horses as emotionally sterile and soulless. Swift's use of horse and Yahoo as sticks to beat one another is a double irony of a kind that has been much used in sf.Books I and II, in which Gulliver voyages to Lilliput, where everyone is very small, and to Brobdingnag, where everyone is a giant ( GREAT AND SMALL), are the best known, partly because bowdlerized versions have become children's classics; the originals are savage and bawdy. Book III is set in and around Laputa, an ISLAND floating in the air and largely populated by semi-crazed scientific researchers (the first important appearance of the mad SCIENTIST in literature); in the distant city of Luggnagg live a group of depressing, senile immortals, "opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but uncapable of Friendship and dead to all natural Affection", the Struldbruggs. Many of the scientific experiments satirized by JS were to become staples of later sf; though he shows their absurdity, he also has sympathy for the imaginative enthusiasm with which they are carried out. Most of JS's work contains such paradoxes.Another satirical strategy of JS has become important to DYSTOPIAN writing generally: he takes an outrageous proposition and debates it quite deadpan, as if he not only supports it but does not seriously expect opposition. Thus he satirized the more inhuman attitudes to poverty (then as now) in A Modest Proposal (1729 chap) by suggesting that OVERPOPULATION and starvation in Ireland could both be cured at a stroke by using the children of the poor as food. [PN]See also: APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); ASTRONOMY; BULGARIA; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; HUMOUR; IMMORTALITY; LOST WORLDS; MATHEMATICS; SEX; SOCIOLOGY; UTOPIAS. SWIGART, ROB Working name of US writer and academic E. Robison Swigart (1941- ), whose novels, from Little America (1977) on, have been FABULATIONS composed in a style which might be described as flamboyantly brisk; they include A.K.A.: A Cosmic Fable (1978), The Time Trip (1979) and The Book of Revelations (1981). Vector (1986) and its sequel Toxin (1989) deal, within a mystery frame, with the threat to Earth of a bio-engineered disease; and Venom (1991) similarly poses for its investigative protagonists the problem of a deadly poison. Perhaps more interestingly, Portal: A Dataspace Retrieval (1988) offers a complex future HISTORY of our planet over the next 100 years, the intercourse and coming to reflective awareness of an AI named Homer, a returned astronaut's search through an apparently abandoned Earth for some sign of humanity, speculations about GENETIC ENGINEERING, and an explanation of the nature of the route taken by humanity through the eponymous exit into a transcendental state. [JC]See also: COMPUTERS. SWORD AND SORCERY This term - describing a subgenre of FANTASY embracing adventures with swordplay and MAGIC - is usually attributed to Fritz LEIBER, who is said to have coined it in 1960, but the kind of story it refers to is much older than that. (Other terms that overlap with "sword-and-sorcery" are HEROIC FANTASY and SCIENCE FANTASY, the overlap being considerable in the former case, but all 3 terms have different nuances.) Earlier terms with similar meaning are "weird fantasy" and "fantastic romance".Leiber was a member of the Hyborian League, a fan group, founded in 1956 to preserve the memory of the pulp writer Robert E. HOWARD, to which many professional writers belonged; the group's FANZINE was Amra. The members believed that Howard founded the sword-and-sorcery genre with his stories in WEIRD TALES, especially the Conan series of swashbuckling, romantic fantasies, beginning with "The Phoenix on the Sword" (1932), set in Earth's imaginary past, and featuring a mighty swordsman, violently amorous, who often confronted supernatural forces of Evil.Howard's stories were not sui generis, however: the creation of imaginary worlds on which colourful adventures took place was very much a feature of PLANETARY ROMANCES in the PULP MAGAZINES, notably the Barsoom stories of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS, which began 20 years before Conan's debut. Burroughs did not feature magic to quite the same extent as Howard (and usually rationalized it as advanced science), but the atmosphere of the books shows a clear continuity between the two writers. In MAINSTREAM literature, too, there was a long tradition of picaresque adventures in imaginary worlds, though usually more modest (and literate), and sometimes less energetic, than Howard's. The usually quoted high points of this tradition up to the time of Howard are the somewhat etiolated medieval fantasies of William MORRIS, the stylish though mannered romances of Lord DUNSANY (often set in a sort of "Faerie"), the rather more swaggering romances of E.R. EDDISON, and James Branch CABELL's elegant, ironic and elaborate Poictesme series. All of these influenced various of the Weird Tales sword-and-sorcery writers, though Howard less than Clark Ashton SMITH, C.L. MOORE and Henry KUTTNER. Moore was perhaps the best writer of this group, with her Jirel of Joiry and her Northwest Smith stories. But there is no denying the colour and vigour of Howard's work. The essential, new element which Howard brought to the genre was the emphasis on brutal, heroic ambition in the HERO, who is seen (unlike Cabell's heroes, for example) quite without irony, as simply admirable.Sometimes sf devices are used to explain the setting of the societies (nearly always tribal or feudal) in which such adventures take place; they may be in ALTERNATE WORLDS, PARALLEL WORLDS, other DIMENSIONS, LOST WORLDS, Earth's prehistoric past even before ATLANTIS, on other planets such as MARS or VENUS, inside the HOLLOW EARTH, or even on forgotten colonies of a GALACTIC EMPIRE. It does not really matter which; the thing is to provide an exotic background - the more elaborately worked out the better - to a dualistic conflict, almost invariably between Good and Evil.Weird Tales continued to publish sword-and-sorcery stories up to the 1940s; many did not see book publication until much later. Clark Ashton Smith's extremely colourful, "jewelled" prose was popular; C.L. Moore had perhaps the most baroque imagination, especially when it came to dreaming up sinister menaces. But sword and sorcery was a very minor genre by the 1950s, despite the activities of the Hyborian League and the publication in book form during that decade (often by GNOME PRESS) of the works of Howard, Moore and others. The chances are that it would never have attained the extraordinary popularity it has today were it not for the belated but huge success of J.R.R. TOLKIEN's The Lord of the Rings (3 vols 1954-5), and the lesser though still remarkable success of T.H. WHITE's The Once and Future King (1958), the latter forming the basis of the musical Camelot (1960), filmed in 1967. When these works had filtered through to the mass market via paperback editions (not until 1965 in the case of Tolkien) it became obvious that there was a huge appetite for work of this kind; publishers began to fall over one another in the effort to feed it.Tolkien's long, richly imagined work is as important to modern sword and sorcery as Howard's, the two representing the two ends of the genre's spectrum: Howard all amoral vigour, Tolkien all deeply moral clarity of imagination. (Also, Howard's heroes were very big, Tolkien's very small.) Common to both - although the two writers could not have had the remotest influence on each other - is a powerful commitment to the idea of worlds where magic works, and where heroism can be pitted against Evil.By the time Tolkien was published, sword and sorcery was showing signs of vigour elsewhere, its two finest exponents being perhaps Fritz Leiber and Jack VANCE. Leiber, with his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series beginning with "Two Sought Adventure" (1939), had been one of the few to publish sword and sorcery through the 1940s. The series is imaginative and full of verve; Leiber's stroke of genius was to have two heroes, one huge and powerful, one small, nimble and quick-witted. Vance's THE DYING EARTH (coll of linked stories 1950) and its successor The Eyes of the Overworld (coll of linked stories 1966) are dry, ironic, moving, cynical, and often very witty indeed; they are written with precision and flourish, and, insofar as they can be compared with anything else in the genre, recall the work of Cabell.Other writers who have had a strong influence on the development of the genre are L. Sprague DE CAMP and Fletcher PRATT, Poul ANDERSON, Leigh BRACKETT (especially her Mars stories) and Lin CARTER. Both De Camp and Carter have had a hand in adding to the Conan series, and Carter's style in particular is more verbose than that of the original. Carter was also from 1969 editor of BALLANTINE BOOKS's Adult Fantasy series, which certainly did much to increase the fantasy readership among young people, and he was a tireless proselytizer for the genre. An unfortunate but inevitable consequence of sword and sorcery's sudden popularity was (and continues to be) the large amount of hackwork that came to be published in the genre.Among the stronger writers is Andre NORTON, whose Witch World books, set in parallel worlds where magic works, are genuinely macabre and evoke vividly the difficulties of maintaining some kind of civilization in the face of Evil, ambition and chaos, though like other works in the genre her books sometimes suffer from a rather clotted, mock-medieval rhetoric. Even Robert A. HEINLEIN wrote one sword-and-sorcery novel, Glory Road (1963), but his matter-of-factness and preachiness render the book less than spellbinding. Sterling LANIER, Fred SABERHAGEN and Christopher STASHEFF have all produced entertaining stories in the genre, as has Avram DAVIDSON, with perhaps more originality.Michael MOORCOCK is one of the relatively few UK writers to work in the genre, and though his sword and sorcery (which he began publishing around 1963) has been dismissed, not least by himself, as hackwork, and while he certainly wrote too much too fast, his fantasy generally and his Elric books in particular imported a welcome breadth to the genre: Good and Evil in Moorcock's books are never easy to define; the forces of Chaos and the forces of Law are alike unsentimental, self-seeking and untroubled by human anguish. Moorcock put paid to the idea of the hero in control of his own destiny; in his books an indifferent universe cares nothing for heroism, but Moorcock does, and the courage shown by his heroes is the more touching for being (usually) doomed. His sword-and-sorcery work is as much a critique of the genre as it is a continuation of its traditions. M. John HARRISON's The Pastel City (1971) is a more interesting than usual variant, using the conventions of the genre with skill, but to slightly deflationary effect.Many fine WOMEN WRITERS have been attracted to sword and sorcery, including those noted above and C.J. CHERRYH, Jane GASKELL, Barbara HAMBLY, Katherine KURTZ, Tanith LEE, R.A. MACAVOY, Sheri S. TEPPER, Joan VINGE and Patricia Wrede (1953- ).Sword-and-sorcery readers appear to welcome long - sometimes seemingly endless - series, and many writers have obliged: John JAKES with the Brak books, Lin Carter with the Thongor books, John NORMAN with the Gor books, and others by Alan Burt Akers (Kenneth BULMER), Gardner F. FOX, Jeffrey LORD, Andrew J. OFFUTT, Peter Valentine TIMLETT, Karl Edward Wagner (1945- ) and Robert Moore WILLIAMS. Not all of these works are pure sword and sorcery; many, such as Akers's, are more directly in the Edgar Rice Burroughs SCIENCE-FANTASY tradition. It can be said that most of these (Jakes's and Wagner's being perhaps the best) are routine, and that at their worst they are execrable. By the mid-1970s sword and sorcery as a marketing term was giving way to HEROIC FANTASY or sometimes "high fantasy". In practice, however, this meant little (if any) change in the sort of material being published. Many sword-and-sorcery motifs found their way into sf proper, too; e.g., the violent Horseclans series (from 1975) by Robert ADAMS, set in a post- HOLOCAUST future. Generally, though, the late 1970s and the 1980s saw a greater separation between sf and sword and sorcery than before, with fewer writers working in both fields, though Stephen DONALDSON, who had made sword-and-sorcery history by introducing a protagonist with leprosy in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series (from 1977), went on to write some sf, as did MacAvoy and, most notably of all, Tepper. The scenarios of some sword-and-sorcery writers, such as David GEMMELL, Hambly and Eric VAN LUSTBADER, occasionally approach the sciencefictional, but many of the most publicized sword-and-sorcery authors of the decade - e.g., David Eddings (1931- ), Robert Jordan (1948- ) and Tad Williams (1957- )-have had nothing to do with sf at all.Sword and sorcery is not sf; it is an accident of publishing history that its links with sf are so strong, but hardly a surprising accident: both have roots in 1930s pulp fiction, and they were for a long time often written by the same people. Both genres, indeed, revel in the creation of imaginary worlds. The fact that sf attempts to rationalize its mysteries while sword and sorcery simply attributes them to supernatural powers does not, perhaps, make as big a difference as sf purists would like to believe. Certainly genre-crossing between the two by writers as various as Norton and Vance has strongly influenced both genres. John CROWLEY's The Deep (1975) uses the confusion between the genres interestingly in its actual structure.Sword and sorcery has also moved inexorably into other media, notably COMICS but also (seldom with much success) CINEMA, as with the John Milius film Conan the Barbarian (1981) and George LUCAS's production Willow (1988). More interestingly, STAR WARS (1977), Lucas's great success, arguably owes as much to sword and sorcery as it does to sf. The most extensive influence of sword and sorcery has been in role-playing games, many discussed under GAMES AND TOYS, whose scenarios it has wholly dominated ever since Gary Gygax (1938- ) and Dave Arneson created and published Dungeons and Dragons (1974).The genre has, perhaps, too narrow a range of interests, and the constant recurrence of the same themes is likely to make all but the most fanatic enthusiast tire quickly, at least with work at the lower end of the market. Much sword and sorcery is violent, sexist and even, according to some, fascist. Norman SPINRAD showed what he thought of the genre in The Iron Dream (1972), which contains a heroic fantasy purportedly written by an alternate-world Hitler. But at its best the genre welcomes wit, imagination, and freewheeling invention; it has produced some memorable images.There are no outstanding studies of sword and sorcery at book length. De Camp's Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy (1976) is useful, however, and Michael MOORCOCK's uneven Wizardry and Wild Romance: A Study of Epic Fantasy (1987) has a number of shrewd observations. [PN]See also: GODS AND DEMONS; PARANOIA; PASTORAL; SEX; VILLAINS. SWORD & SORCERY ANNUAL US DIGEST-size reprint magazine. 1 issue, 1975, published by Ultimate Publishing Co.; ed Sol Cohen, uncredited. 1 story was from WEIRD TALES, the Conan tale "Queen of the Black Coast" (1934) by Robert E. HOWARD; the others were from Fantastic 1961-5. [FHP] SWYCFFER, JEFFERSON P(UTNAM) (1956- ) US writer, almost exclusively of TIES, including the Tales of the Concordat sequence, which is tied to a game, and which comprises Not in our Stars * (1984), Become the Hunted * (1985), The Universal Prey * (1985), The Presidium of Archive * (coll 1985), The Empire's Legacy * (1988), Voyage of the Planetslayer * (1988) and Revolt and Rebirth * (1988). Warsprite (1990) is a somewhat jumbled sf novel featuring ROBOTS in a future Wyoming; and Web of Futures (1991) is a somewhat more ambitious TIME TRAVEL fantasy. [JC] SYKES, S(ONDRA) C(ATHARINE) (? -? ) US writer of a tie in the U.S.S.A. sequence, U.S.S.A., Book 3 * (1987), in which high-school students continue to oppose NEAR-FUTURE totalitarian oppression. Red Genesis (1991), #1 in the The Next Wave line of otherwise unconnected novels from Byron PREISS Visual Productions, deals with the colonization of MARS. [JC]SYLVESTER, JOHN Hyperlink to: Hector HAWTON. SYLVESTER, JOHN Hector HAWTON. SYMBIOSIS PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS. SYMMES, JOHN CLEVES (1780-1829) US army officer with the rank of Captain, who distinguished himself in the War of 1812, retired, and subsequently devoted his life to propagandizing (largely through speeches, apparently charismatic) on behalf of his theory of a HOLLOW EARTH consisting of 5 concentric spheres, with openings at the poles. He twice petitioned Congress (1822, 1823) for funds to mount an expedition to the (literal) interior, but failed. His health failed, too, after many lecture tours, and he died quite young. He did not leave any account in book form of his theories, though he did issue a paper in 1818. Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres (1826) was by a disciple, James McBride, and The Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres, Demonstrating that the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within, and Widely Open about the Pole: Compiled by Americus Symmes from the Writings of his Father Captain John Cleves Symmes (1878) was by his 10th child. Although it has been thought that the novel Symzonia (1820) by Adam SEABORN may have been written pseudonymously by JCS, it has been pointed out (by E.F. BLEILER) that this is unlikely since, although the book alludes to Symmes in its title, it actually satirizes some of Symmes's ideas. These ideas were not sui generis, and indeed belong to a long tradition of PSEUDO-SCIENCE theorizing, one of whose important milestones was a 1692 paper by the astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742), published by the Royal Society in London, also arguing for nested spheres (and an internal sun). JCS's version was, however, directly influential through much of the 19th century. [PN]See also: LOST WORLDS. SYNERGY US ORIGINAL-ANTHOLOGY series ed George ZEBROWSKI, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: Synergy: New Science Fiction #1 (anth 1987), #2 (anth 1988), #3 (anth 1989) and #4 (anth 1989). It was interesting without being remarkable, publishing good stories by Gregory BENFORD, Chad OLIVER, Ian WATSON and others. [PN] SYNGE, J(OHN) L(YTON) (1897- ) Irish physicist and writer whose best-known nontechnical work of nonfiction is Science, Sense and Nonsense (1951). His novel, Kandelman's Krim: A Realistic Fantasy (1957), features a long conversation in which an Orc, a Kea, a Unicorn and a Plumber discuss the concept of infinity and instruct a passing Goddess in the foundations of MATHEMATICS. [BS] SYVERTSEN, RYDER (OTTO) (1941- ) US writer specializing in sf and fantasy adventure sequences, the only one to appear under his own name being the Mystic Rebel series: Mystic Rebel (1988), #2: The Dancing Dead (1988), #3: Darkness Descends (1988), #4: Temple of Dark Destiny (1989) and #5: Cave of the Master (1990). Also under his own name he wrote Psychic Spawn (1987) with Adrian Fletcher (pseudonym of Rosemary Ellen Guiley); and with Jan STACY he wrote The Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983).Also with Stacy, writing together as Jan Sievert, he began the C.A.D.S. sequence (the acronym stands for Computerized Attack/Defence System) with C.A.D.S. (1985). Stacy then dropped out, and the sequence was continued by RS, who wrote #2-#8, and then by David ALEXANDER, who wrote #9-#11, both always writing as Sievert. The sequence continued with C.A.D.S. #2: Tech Background (1986), #3: Tech Commando (1986), #4: Tech Strike Force (1987), #5: Tech Satan (1988), #6: Tech Inferno (1988), #7: Doom Commander (1989), #8: Cybertech Killing Zone (1989), #9: Suicide Attack (1990), #10: Recon by Fire (1990), #11: Death Zone Attack (1991) and #12: Tech Assassins (1991).RS and Stacy also began the Doomsday Warrior sequence of SURVIVALIST-FICTION novels, all as by Ryder Stacy, set in a USA after 100 years of occupation by brutish Russians, who commit their first strike in 1989 and, during the subsequent HOLOCAUST, cause the world's axis to tip out of true, killing off most of any remaining animal life: Doomsday Warrior (1984), #2: Red America (1984), #3: The Last American (1984) and #4: Bloody America (1985), all with Stacy, and then, by RS solo, #5: America's Last Declaration (1985), #6: American Rebellion (1985), #7: American Defiance (1986), #8: American Glory (1986), #9: America's Zero Hour (1986), #10: American Nightmare (1987), #11: American Eden (1987), #12: Death, American Style (1987), #13: American Paradise (1988), #14: American Death Orbit (1988), #15: American Ultimatum (1989), #16: American Overthrow (1989), #17: America's Sword (1990), #18: American Dream Machine (1990) and #19: America's Final Defense (1991). [JC] SZABO, PETER SZENTMIHALYI [r] HUNGARY. SZATHMARY, SANDOR [r] HUNGARY. SZEPES, MARIA [r] HUNGARY. SZILARD, LEO (1898-1964) Celebrated Hungarian-US physicist, in the USA from 1937, whose The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories (coll 1961) was published late in his career. Several of these sf stories had been written in the 1940s, one of them, "My Trial as a War Criminal" (1949), being an early expression of the deep and often hidden fears of the scientific community about the development of the nuclear bomb. The title story, told in the form of an impersonal report, makes pioneer use of the notion that cetacean INTELLIGENCE is both vastly different and in some ways superior to that of Homo sapiens. Dolphins grow to dominate mankind, using scientists and institutions as fronts, and the planet is saved. [JC] SZYDLOW, JARL Mary VIGLIANTE. |