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Sunday 12 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2026
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Perfect Woman, The
Film (1949). Two Cities/Eagle-Lion. Directed by Bernard Knowles. Written by George Black, Knowles, based on the play The Perfect Woman (produced 1948; 1950) by Wallace Geoffrey and Basil Mitchell. Cast includes Pamela Devis, Irene Handl, Stanley Holloway, Miles Malleson, Nigel Patrick, Patricia Roc and Constance Smith. 89 minutes. Black and white. / An inventor creates a Robot in the image of his niece and hires a young man to take it out on ...
Byatt, Henry
(?1855-1934) UK playwright and author, born Harry Byatt Robinson, which he shortened by deed poll to Harry Byatt in 1900; little is known of him beyond his published works, which include meretricious dramas set to music like The Golden Age; or, Pierrot's Sacrifice: An Original Idyllic Musical Play (1898 chap), which sentimentally transposes Pierrot into the Golden Age of a much earlier tradition, or The Testament of Judas (1908), a fantasy about Judas Iscariot. ...
Swearing
Genre SF authors often depict futuristic swearing, blasphemy and other forms of foul speech, not always with any great conviction. Robert Graves's Lars Porsena; Or, the Future of Swearing and Improper Language (1927 chap; exp vt The Future of Swearing and Improper Language 1936) foreshadows the problem afflicting the SF Magazines for decades after the year of his ...
Golan the Insatiable
US animated tv series (2013-2015). ADHD, Amazing Schlock, Double Hemm, Friends Night. Created by Josh Miller. Executive Producers include Hend Baghdady and Nick Weidenfeld. Directors include Douglas Einar Olsen. Writers include Pat Casey and Josh Miller. Voice cast includes Mary Mack, Josh Miller, Aubrey Plaza and Rob Riggle. Twelve 11-22 minute episodes. Colour. / Golan (Miller/Riggle), a horned, demonic "God-lord, commander of all that was seen and unseen" from the Gkruool ...
Cooper, James Fenimore
(1789-1851) US author, best known for the Leather-Stocking Tales sequence in a gentlemanly frontier-adventure tale style, a set of essentially nonfantastic proto-Westerns which includes The Last of the Mohicans (1826) and many other widely read novels featuring the woodsman Natty Bumppo; he also wrote several Gothic tales containing supernatural elements, like the broad hints that the protagonist of The Spy, a Tale of the Neutral Ground ...
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 ...