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Friday 13 February 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the 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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Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949-2026) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" in Fiction Magazine for 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to the loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for instance, combines quest ...
Osborn, E Margaret
(1902-2006) UK-born poet, playwright and author, in Canada from 1921; her sf novel, Short Visit to Ergon (1971), is a moderately conventional Utopia set on the planet Ergon, where life is good. [JC]
Tokusatsu
Tokusatsu is a contraction of the Japanese term tokushu satsuei ["special photography"] and is the term for special effects used in live action film and Television. It is mainly associated with those sf, Fantasy and Horror productions that are dominated by special effects; thus there are many works in those genres not classifiable as Tokusatsu. / Strictly speaking, ...
Close Encounters of the Third Kind – The Special Edition
Film (1980). Credits as for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). 132 minutes. Colour. / This slightly shorter, re-edited version of Spielberg's huge 1977 success, which contains some new footage, represents a curious piece of cinematic history. Many critics saw it as inferior to the original, though the idea was that Spielberg now had so much commercial clout that he could, at ...
Fantasy Film Journal
Letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine printed on middle-grade paper. Published by Quarterly Nostalgia Graphics. Editor: unknown. Two numbered but undated issues in 1977. / Short-lived but well-produced publication which like so many others failed to obtain adequate distribution. #1 was largely dedicated to Star Wars (1977), but also featured material on Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman (see ...
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 ...