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Sunday 12 April 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 6 April 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Sleeper
Film (1973). Rollins-Joffe Productions/United Artists. Directed by Woody Allen. Written by Allen, Marshall Brickman. Cast includes Allen, John Beck, Mary Gregory, Diane Keaton and Don Keefer. 88 minutes. Colour. / The plot device of having a man from the present suddenly finding himself in the future (this time through Cryonics) is nearly always used to comment on contemporary society rather than to speculate about the future (see ...
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Australian band formed in Melbourne in 2010, whose music mixes healthy doses of prog with metal, psychedelic rock and pop-punk. Their name indicates the level of absurdity found throughout their voluminous discography. Murder in the Universe (2017) includes a suite about a Cyborg named Han-Tyumi, who wants to learn how to vomit and die, and eventually engulfs the universe in Grey Goo. ...
Space School
UK tv serial (1956). Produced by Kevin Sheldon. Written by Gordon Ford. Cast includes David Drummond, Matthew Lane, Donald McCorkindale, John Stuart and Julie Webb. Four 25-minute episodes. Black and white. / The producer of this Children's SF serial was also behind such earlier British sf serials as The Lost Planet (1954). In Space School, a group of children live in an artificial satellite ...
Mackelworth, R W
(1930-2000) UK author and insurance salesman who began publishing sf with "The Statue" in New Worlds for January 1963 and produced some above-average sf adventure novels, usually involving complex but rarely jumbled plotting, and an Earth somehow in danger. They include Firemantle (1968; vt The Diabols 1969), Tiltangle (1970), in which melodramatic Climate Change has confined humanity to ...
Village of the Damned
1. Film (1960). MGM. Directed by Wolf Rilla. Written by Sterling Silliphant, Rilla, George Barclay (Ronald Kinnoch, the producer), based on The Midwich Cuckoos (1957; rev 1958; vt Village of the Damned 1960) by John Wyndham. Cast includes George Sanders, Barbara Shelley and Martin Stephens. 77 minutes. Black and white. / In this faithful but pedestrian adaptation of Wyndham's novel, everyone in a UK village ...
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 (1966-1967), and later in ...