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Thursday 26 May 2022
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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Hollow Earth
The concept of the Earth as a hollow, spherical shell with a habitable, internal concave surface accessible through polar openings or caves, or by mechanical bores, has long been a significant motif in sf. The idea's dual origins, from Religion and Pseudoscience, are still potent. Traditionally Hell was sited inside the Earth, a notion that persisted at least until the eighteenth century, when a theologian proposed that Earth's rotation was caused by the damned scrambling to escape from Hell. ...
Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman
Made-for-tv movie (1993), first screened December 1993. Home Box Office/Warner Bros Television/Bartleby Ltd. Produced by Debra Hill. Directed by Christopher Guest. Written by Joseph Dougherty, based on the screenplay of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) written by Mark Hanna. Cast includes Daniel Baldwin, Christi Conaway, Frances Fisher, Daryl Hannah and William Windom. 89 minutes. Colour. / This is a remake of a rather dim affair from 1958 with (approximately) the same title, directed by ...
Wonder Woman Film/TV
Only thirty years after its introduction in 1942 did the first media adaptations of Wonder Woman appear with three successive, variously named US tv series (1974-1979) and their pilot films, all technically based on the Comic book created by William Moulton Marston (1893-1947) for DC Comics. The complex Television production history falls into three parts, being sections 1 to 3 below. / 1. Wonder Woman. US tv film (1974). ABC/Warner. Produced by John G Stephens. Executive producer, story ...
Harsh Mistress
US Semiprozine published by DNA Publications, Greenfield, Massachusetts and edited by Warren Lapine with Kevin Rogers and Tim Ballou. Its title was taken from Robert A Heinlein's novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (December 1965-April 1966 If; 1966); this gave the impression to many that it was a bondage magazine rather than sf, which may have affected sales; nevertheless these were greater than most had predicted. There was a year's gap between the first and second issues, Spring/Summer 1993 ...
Van Arnam, Dave
Working name of US author David G Van Arnam (1935-2002), who insisted on the capital V (not van Arnam). He began publishing sf with Lost in Space (1967) with Ron Archer (Ted White), a novelization from the television series Lost in Space. Sideslip (1968) was also written with White, who this time used his own name; the protagonist of this Alternate-World tale finds himself in a different 1968 New York where Aliens have ruled Earth since 1938, incidentally preventing World War Two. Further ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for November 1966, where much of his earlier criticism also appeared. This criticism, despite some studiously ...