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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 ...
Mechanical Man, The
Italian film (1921). Original title L'Uomo Meccanico. Milano Film. Directed and written by André Deed. Cast includes André Deed, Valentina Frascaroli, Mathilde Lambert and Gabriel Moreau. 60-80 minutes. Black and white (but with colour tinting). About 26 minutes of this movie survive: it had long been considered lost, until parts of the Portuguese version were discovered in Brazil, albeit in poor condition. / When a criminal gang learn a ...
Butler, Jack
(1944- ) US author and college teacher, much of whose fiction – like his first novel, Jujitsu for Christ (1986) – has dealt in non-fantastic terms with his native US South, though always with a sometimes gonzo sense that the envelope of mimesis must be pushed to capture his native territory. In this he is similar to southern regionalists such as Fred Chappell and Donald ...
Magrs, Paul
(1969- ) UK academic. Radio playwright and author, some of whose early nonseries fiction is nonfantastic, though To the Devil – a Diva! (2004) is about a horror film star, ageless through a Pact with the Devil [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], who threatens chaos when she re-ignites her career in a transgressive soap opera. Of more direct sf ...
Farthing
UK Digest-size Semiprozine, side-stapled, issues ranging between 70 and 96 pages, edited by Wendy Bradley. It ran for five full issues, July 2005 to January 2007, plus a mini-issue numbered 4.5 (December 2006). The title was ambiguous, not only implying the old British coin, the farthing, which was the smallest denomination, thus implying a small magazine, but also meaning "far thing", which adequately describes the contents. Running ...
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 ...