SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 8 July 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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Bacon, Walter
(? - ) Author known only for his single sf novel for Robert Hale Limited, The Last Experiment (1974). [DRL]
Mantley, John
(1920-2003) Canadian-born US screenwriter and producer whose Near Future sf novel, The Twenty-Seventh Day (1956; rev 1956), features Galactic Federation Aliens who give each of five humans from opposing countries an invincible weapon in 1963 to see what they do with them. The novel was filmed – from the US version, which has a revised ending – as The 27th Day ...
Wiener, Norbert
(1894-1964) US mathematician and author who established the contemporary sense of the word Cybernetics in his highly influential nonfiction work Cybernetics; Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948; exp rev 1961). Some of his further speculations in this field appear in The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) and in ...
Bolland, Brian
(1951- ) UK Comic-book artist highly regarded for his smooth line and meticulous, sculptural drawing style. His first strip work appeared in the underground magazine Oz in 1971. In 1975-1977 he drew Powerman, a Black Superhero, for the Nigerian market, his episodes alternating with those by Dave Gibbons, and then he began producing covers for ...
Visit to a Small Planet
US film (1960). Hal Wallis Productions. Directed by Norman Taurog. Written by Edmund Beloin and Henry Garson, based on the play by Gore Vidal. Cast includes Joan Blackman, Fred Clark, Earl Holliman, Jerry Lewis and John Williams. 85 minutes. Black and white. / Mr Delton (Williams), an Alien geography teacher (see Education in SF), lectures his pupils on that minor galaxy which lies beyond ...
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 ...