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Saturday 23 September 2023
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.
Site updated on 18 September 2023
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Sargasso Sea
This region in the west of the North Atlantic Ocean, with Bermuda near its western edge, is named for the Sargassum seaweed that grows there and which – along with historical accounts of sailing ships being becalmed there – gave rise to the popular legend of a seaweed-choked Zone of mystery, a mist-shrouded oceanic Lost World of derelict ocean craft, very probably infested with Monsters and ...
Snowpiercer
Film (2013). Snowpiercer, Moho Film, Opus Pictures. Directed by Joon-ho Bong. Written by Joon-ho Bong and Kelly Masterson, from the Graphic Novel Le Transperceneige (graph 1982; trans as The Explorers 2014) by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette. Cast includes Jamie Bell, Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Vlad Ivanov, Kang-ho Song, Octavia Spencer and Tilda Swinton. 126 minutes. Colour. / It is a film which bears signs of ...
Rankin, Robert
(1949- ) UK author who began writing his highly idiosyncratic sf novels with the Brentford sequence beginning with The Antipope (1981), The Brentford Triangle (1983) and East of Ealing (1984), these three assembled as The Brentford Trilogy (omni 1988); the final volume in the sequence, Retromancer (2009), is a spoof Hitler Wins ...
McLaughlin, Iain
(1967- ) UK Comics writer, author of several Radio plays including some for the Doctor Who universe, some with Claire Bartlett; he began to publish work of genre interest with "The Time Lord's Story" (with Bartlett) in Doctor Who: Short Trips: Repercussions (anth 2004) edited by Gary Russell. He is the ...
Ballard, S M
(? - ) US author, about whom nothing is known beyond his being credited with two volumes in the G I Joe series of Comics-based violent adventures (see below). [JC]
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 ...