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Sunday 7 December 2025
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.
Site updated on 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Frankenstein
Film (1931). Universal. Directed by James Whale. Written by Garrett Fort, Robert Florey, Francis Edward Faragoh, based on an adaptation by Florey and John L Balderston of the play by Peggy Webling, based in turn on Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Cast includes Mae Clarke, Colin Clive, Dwight ...
Middleman, The
US tv series (2008). Created by Javier Grillo-Marxuach for ABC Family. Producers include Grillo-Marxuach, Shane Keller, and John Ziffren. Directors include Jeremiah S Chechik and Michael Zinberg. Writers include Grillo-Marxuach, Les McClaine, and Andy Reaser. Cast includes Matt Keeslar as The Middleman, Natalie Morales as Wendy Watson, Brit Morgan as Lacey Thornfield, Mary Pat Gleason as Ida, and Jake Smollett as Noser. 12 one-hour episodes produced. / Based on the ...
Sillitoe, Alan
(1928-2010) UK author best known for early "kitchen-sink drama" novels like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958), though he remained active well into the present century. The General (1960), filmed as Counterpoint (1967), involves a hijacked orchestra with abstract armies clashing on an abstract ground, perhaps not Terran. The long title poem of The Rats and Other Poems (coll 1960) literalizes ...
Matulich, Josef
(? - ) US special effects artist and author whose work tends, with some Equipoisal drive, to mix together fantasy, Horror in SF and sf, an enterprise perhaps most effective in the Arcanum Faire sequence beginning with Camp Arcanum (2014), set spoofishly behind the scenes of a Renaissance Faire, where Technology and ...
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 ...