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Sunday 19 July 2026
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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Harker, Kenneth
(1927-2003) UK author with a training in physics, employed as a technical officer in the thermal insulation business, whose first published sf story was "Cog" in New Worlds, April 1966; he had previously sold crime and fantasy fiction, an earlier nonrealistic story being "Colossus of Roads" (August 1961 Storyteller). His sf novels – The Symmetrians (1966), which concerns a ...
Monkey Shines
Film (1988; vt Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Terror). Orion/Charles Evans. Directed by George Romero. Written by Romero, based on Monkey Shines (1983) by Michael Stewart. Cast includes Jason Beghe, Kate McNeil, John Pankow and Joyce Van Patten. 113 minutes. Colour. / The sf element in this horror thriller is Ella, a monkey, the subject of an experiment to increase simian intelligence by ...
Tarkovsky, Andrei
(1932-1987) Russian film-maker. A graduate of the Soviet State Film School, Tarkovsky attained prominence in Russia with his first film, Ivanovo Detstvo (1962; vt Ivan's Childhood; vt My Name Is Ivan), the story of an orphan cut off behind enemy lines during World War Two. With his next feature, Andrei Roublev (1966; release delayed until 1971), Tarkovsky fell foul of the Soviet censors with his dark vision of the life of the ...
Twonky, The
Film (1953). Arch Oboler Productions/United Artists. Directed by Arch Oboler. Written by Oboler, based on "The Twonky" (September 1942 Astounding) by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner). Cast includes Gloria Blondell, Hans Conreid, Billy Lynn, Ed Max and Janet Warren. 72 minutes. Black and white. / After his sanctimonious Five (1951), about survivors of nuclear war, ...
Scott, R T M
Form of name used independently by two Canadian authors, father and son, both christened Reginald Thomas Maitland Scott, though the son was usually called Robert and sometimes wrote simply as Maitland Scott. Scott Senior (1882-1966) had been a much-travelled marine engineer and subsequent soldier during World War One, with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, before settling in the USA and turning to writing. His first story, "Such Bluff as Dreams Are Made Of" (April 1920 ...
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. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star ...