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Sunday 14 June 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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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
Change of Mind
Film (1969). Directed by Robert Stevens. Produced by Seeleg Lester, Dick Wesson and Henry S White. Written by Lester and Wesson. Cast includes Janet MacLachlan, Leslie Nielsen, Susan Oliver and Raymond St Jacques. 98 minutes. Colour. / A rare movie treatment of Race in SF in a contemporary setting, in which white US district attorney David Rowe undergoes a brain transplant (see Identity Transfer) into the body of a ...
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
(1809-1894) US poet, essayist, editor, medical doctor and author, of sf interest in the latter capacity for Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny (January 1860-April 1861 The Atlantic Monthly as "The Professor's Story"; 1861 2vols), in which the classic fantasy and supernatural topos of the Lamia is reconstructed in terms of Biology: the eponymous young female, having been "poisoned" in the womb with rattlesnake venom (see ...
Taylor, Angus
(1945- ) Canadian critic and academic; involved in Canadian Fandom from the 1960s through the 1980s; with the Spaced Out Library (now the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy) 1972-1975. He began to publish reviews of genre interest in Moebius Trip Library: Science Fiction Echo 17 for May 1973 (see Moebius Trip). His sharp, socio-political ...
Love War, The
Made-for-tv film (1970). Paramount/ABC-TV. Directed by George McCowan. Written by Guerdon Trueblood, David Kidd. Cast includes Harry Basch, Lloyd Bridges, Angie Dickinson and Dan Travanti. 74 minutes. Colour. / Six Aliens from two warring planets arrive on Earth for a duel to the death to decide which of those planets is the victor. Four are eliminated; one survivor (Bridges) opts to try to stop the fight, remain on Earth, merge with the natives, and have a ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...