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World of Westfahl |
Encyclopedia Introduction |
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Acknowledgements
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(1951– ). American writer.
Provided voiceover commentary for DVD: Jerome BIXBY's The
Man from Earth (Richard Schenkman 2007).
Consultant to producer "H. G. Wells" (documentary)
(1995), episode of Biography; "Stationed in the Stars"
(documentary) (2000), episode of Nova; Prophets of Science Fiction (tv
documentary) (Dan Levitt 2006).
For those few people who
might be interested: to date Westfahl has written five books—Cosmic
Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction (1966), Islands in the Sky:
The Space Station Theme in Science Fiction Literature (1996, 2009), The
Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction (1998), Science
Fiction, Children's Literature, and Popular Culture: Coming of Age in
Fantasyland (2000), and Hugo Gernsback and the Century of Science
Fiction (2007)—edited four others—Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme
in Science Fiction (2000), Science Fiction Quotations: From the Inner
Mind to the Outer Limits (2005) the three-volume The Greenwood
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders (2005),
and Frank McConnell's The Science of Fiction and the Fiction of Science:
Collected Essays on SF Storytelling and the Gnostic Imagination (2009) —and
co-edited ten more—Immortal Engines: Life Extension and Immortality in
Science Fiction and Fantasy (1996), Science Fiction and Market Realities
(1996), Foods of the Gods: Eating and the Eaten in Fantasy and Science
Fiction (1996), Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science
Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (1999), Science Fiction, Canonization,
Marginalization, and the Academy (2002), Unearthly Visions: Approaches
to Science Fiction and Fantasy Art (2002), Worlds Enough and Time:
Explorations of Time in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2002), No Cure for
the Future: Disease and Medicine in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2002), World
Weavers: Globalization, Science Fiction, and the Cybernetic Revolution (2005),
and Science Fiction and the Two Cultures: Essays on Bridging the Gap between
the Sciences and the Humanities (2009). As outlets for his restless energy
if nothing else, additional books are sure to follow.
In addition, he served as a
Consultant Editor of John Clute and John Grant's award-winning The
Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) and contributed entries to that volume and
numerous other reference works, including The Cambridge Companion to Science
Fiction (2003) and The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science
(2004). His articles and reviews have appeared in Extrapolation, Florida
Today, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, Isis:
Journal of the History of Science Society, The Journal of the Fantastic
in the Arts, The Los Angeles Times, Million: The Magazine about
Popular Fiction, Monad: Essays on Science Fiction, The New York
Review of Science Fiction, Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres,
The Report: The Fiction Writer's Magazine, Science Fiction Eye, The
Science Fiction Research Association Review, Science Fiction Studies,
The Western Historical Quarterly, and over a dozen critical anthologies,
and translations of his work have been published in the Japanese magazine Eureka,
the Spanish magazines BEM: Ciencia Ficción y Fantasia and Stalker:
Cine Fantastico, the Brazilian magazine Papêra Uirandê, and the
Czech magazine Ikarie. In his writings, he displays an appreciative
interest in a wide variety of science fiction and fantasy texts and films,
ranging from the very best to the very worst, and an unusual willingness to
criticize artists who in some way fall short of his standards, leading to
inaccurate charges that this inoffensive, mild-mannered man is vituperative and
mean-spirited. Tolerated if not embraced by the science fiction community, he
earned the Science Fiction Research Association's 2003 Pilgrim Award for his
lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship, and his Science
Fiction Quotations was nominated for a 2005 Hugo Award.
Since none of these
activities provide very much in the way of income, Westfahl has kept his day
jobs at the University of California, Riverside and the University of La Verne,
teaching various classes and performing some administrative duties. Since his
daughter Allison and new son-in-law Steven now live in New York City, only his
wife Lynne and son Jeremy must now put up with his long hours of feverish
writing on the computer, and they continued to ardently wish that he would stop
wasting his time on all this nonsense and start writing Star Trek novels
so he could earn some real money.
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