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Tuesday 24 June 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.
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Wittig, Monique
(1935-2003) French author, in US from 1976, whose first novel with sf interest, Les Guérillères (1969; trans David Le Vay as Les Guérillères 1971), transforms the arguments of Feminism into a series of narrative litanies that work movingly to describe an abstract "tribe" of lesbian Amazons in a constant state of warfare with their natural enemy; the novel balances Equipoisally ...
Star Battles
Letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine printed on cheap newsprint. Published by Myron Fass as Stories, Layouts and Press. Editor: Bill Weiss. Possibly six issues, Winter 1978 to Summer 1979. / One of several sf Media Magazines issued by Fass in the wake of the success of Star Wars (1977) and the publication Starlog. Coverage ...
Tomerlin, John
(1930-2014) US screenwriter and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Alienation of Affection" in Science Fantasy for February 1957. Run from the Hunter (1957) with Charles Beaumont writing together as Keith Grantland is a nonfantastic thriller about a man on the run after being falsely convicted; it inspired the television series The Fugitive (1963-1967) and its ...
Reiffel, Leonard
(1927-2017) US physicist, broadcaster, noted for his competent and accessible radio programme The World Tomorrow which began in 1964, Deputy Director of the Apollo Moon project for NASA 1965-1969, and author; in his Near Future Technothriller, The Contaminant (1978), a plot is brewed to destroy the USSR with a virus that causes cancer (see Pandemic). [JC]
Stern, Dave
(1958- ) US author almost exclusively as a contributor of Ties to various series universes, including some associated with Marvel Comics and Star Trek, the first of these being Dr Bones #5: Nightmare World (1989), part of a Shared World series about the eponymous archaeologist/adventurer in space, clearly influenced by Stephen ...
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 ...