SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 19 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.
Site updated on 18 May 2022
Sponsor of the day: Dublin 2019 – An Irish Worldcon
Stuff, The
Film (1985). Larco/New World. Produced by (with Peter Sabiston) and directed by Larry Cohen. Written by Cohen. Cast includes Andrea Marcovicci, Michael Moriarty, Garrett Morris and Patrick O'Neal. 87 minutes. Colour. / The Stuff is an addictive, gooey fast food which, though passive, is in all other respects a traditional Monster; this Monster Movie is, in the Cohen manner, an atypical one. The baleful Stuff, originally found in a hole in the ground, takes over its victims when they eat it, ...
Strikeshoulder, Viter
Pseudonym of US author Wayland Spaulding (1850-1918), apparently most active in Poughkeepsie, New York; his Near Future Satire, When Theodore Is King [for subtitle see Checklist below] (1907 chap), lampoons the political ascendancy of President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) after working-class unrest beginning in 1907 and climaxing two years later with his ascension to the newly-created throne, with Canada begging to unite with the new monarchy. The book, which is dated 1909, is told in ...
Sh'mantra
Australian neo-prog band. Both their debut release Cornucopia (1998) and their follow-up double-album Formula Orange (2001) are couched in an atmospheric, pared-down musical style, mostly instrumental, a little reminiscent of Radiohead. Tracks on the latter include "Robots on the Beach" and a ten-minute version of Edgar Allan Poe called "Pit and the Pendulum". It works well, although this same style seems drifty and unfocused in their next album, Sub Floating (2002). [AR]
Tarzan Films
Films about Tarzan are of varying interest, and are treated accordingly. Early examples made some pretence of following the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs; later films abandoned that pretence. Several actors played Tarzan himself. The most famous were Johnny Weissmuller (9 to 24) and Lex Barker (25 to 29). For further Jungle Movies see Bomba Films and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. / 1. Tarzan of the Apes (1918) US film. National Film Corporation of America/First National. Produced by William ...
TransVersions
Canadian Digest-size Small Press Semiprozine published by Island Speciality Reports, Victoria for the first eight issues, Autumn 1994 to Spring/Summer 1998, and then by Paper Orchid Press, Toronto. Edited by Dale L Sproule and Sally McBride through to issue #10 (Spring 1999) and then by Marcel Gagne and Sally Tomasevic. Issue #8/9 was a double issue, so that there were only ten print issues ending with #11 for Winter (December) 1999. An additional issue was released as an anthology in November ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...