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Tuesday 29 April 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.
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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Shimmer
US Online Magazine, semi-professional from issue #15 (Summer 2012), also available in print form for its first eighteen issues, though the print issues seldom sold more than 200 copies. It was published and edited by Beth Wodzinski in Salt Lake City, Utah, and planned as a quarterly from Autumn 2005 though it soon appeared only twice yearly from 2007 to 2013, and it was not until it shifted solely to online publication that it was able to appear bi-monthly ...
Labyrinths
Labyrinths and mazes have a long history, and distinctions between them have long been blurred. The archetypal maze was a two-dimensional pattern, often cut in turf, to be traversed voluntarily as a kind of ritual Game. Even traditional hedge-mazes like Hampton Court's in London do not offer serious physical barriers; thus the narrator of Alasdair Gray's Five Letters from an Eastern Empire (1979 ...
Ewers, Hanns Heinz
(1871-1943) German author, spy in Mexico and the USA in World War One, and early member of the Nazi Party, though he soon alienated its leaders through his insistence that his and their obsession with matters of Blood led inevitably (and properly) to psychic and literal vampirism (see Decadence; Vampires). Supermen predominate in his fiction, ...
Zotz!
Film (1962). Columbia. Directed by William Castle. Written by Ray Russell, based on Zotz! (1947) by Walter Karig. Cast includes Tom Poston. 87 minutes. Black and white. / A poorly regarded comedy adaptation of Karig's offbeat novel. The original gift of the Psi-Power ability to kill via word and gesture here becomes an external McGuffin, the ...
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 ...