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Friday 17 May 2024
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
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Corman, Roger
(1926-2024) US film-maker, a number of whose films are sf. Born in Los Angeles, he graduated in engineering from Stanford University in 1947, and spent a period in the US Navy and a term at Oxford University before going to Hollywood, where he began to write screenplays; his first sale was Highway Dragnet (1954), a picture he coproduced. He soon formed his own company and launched his spectacularly low-budget career. From 1956 he was regularly associated with ...
Baber, Asa
(1936-2003) US author, best-known for a column he wrote for Playboy from 1982 until his death of Lou Gehrig's Disease, which he described openly; his column, though rebarbative in some of its defensiveness about Men, argued cogently for male parental rights when parents are separated. A rogue General threatens a Near Future nuclear conflict in South East Asia in his first novel, The Land of a Million Elephants (February-April ...
Omega
Hungarian prog-rock band, reputedly the most successful rock act in Hungarian history. Their international success owes something to their habit of releasing both Hungarian- and English-language versions of their studio albums; although the heavily accented and sometimes unidiomatic vocal expression on the latter detract from the effectiveness of the whole. Időrabló (1976), re-recorded in English and released as Time Robber (1977) touches, in its lengthy ...
Space Master X-7
Film (1958). Regal Films. Directed by Edward Bernds. Written by Daniel Manwairing, George Worthing Yates, and Edward Bernds (uncredited). Cast includes Joan Barry, Robert Ellis, Paul Frees, Moe Howard, Lyn Thomas, Bill Williams and Rhoda Williams. 71 minutes. Black and white. / An unmanned space probe returns to Earth containing samples of an Alien lifeform. When Scientist Charles Pommer (Frees) begins studying the samples at ...
Wright, Lan
Working name of UK author Lionel Percy Wright (1923-2010) for all his fiction; increased responsibilities in manufacturing industry curtailed his writing career. He began publishing sf with "Operation Exodus" for New Worlds in January 1952, and was active for over a decade in UK magazines, chiefly New Worlds and Nebula Science Fiction. His Johnny Dawson series in ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...