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Sunday 8 December 2024
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Kandel, Michael
(1941- ) US book editor, translator and author, best known until the late 1980s for his brilliant translations from the Polish of works by Stanisław Lem, among them a pyrotechnic rendering of the novella "Kongres Futurologiczny" (1971 Poland) as The Futurological Congress (1974), many of whose wordplays as translated here being of necessity Kandel's own coinings. The Cosmic Carnival of Stanisław Lem (coll ...
Lindsay, Joan
(1896-1984) Australian painter and author; she was born Joan à Beckett Weigall into an Australian family prominent in the arts. Of some interest, for its spoofing of the Fantastic Voyage and of the Lost Race tale, is Through Darkest Pondelayo: An Account of the Adventures of Two English Ladies on a Cannibal Island (1936) as by Serena Livingstone-Stanley. Just as the publication of an excised framing ...
Stephenson, Neal
(1959- ) US author whose first two novels – The Big U (1984) and Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (1988) – both convey a strong sense that sf turns are just around the next page, but neither of which can justly be read as sf. The first is a gonzo college caper, told rather in the style of John Landis's film, National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), in which a vast "Megaversity", funded by an involvement in radioactive waste ...
Prix du Danger, Le
French/Yugoslav Film (1983; vt The Prize of Peril). Swanie/TFI/UGC-Top 1/Avala. Directed by Yves Boisset. Written by Boisset, Jan Curtelin, based on "The Prize of Peril" (May 1958 F&SF) by Robert Sheckley. Cast includes Gérard Lanvin, Michel Piccoli and Marie-France Pisier. 98 minutes, cut to 88 minutes in English-dubbed version. Colour. / In this ...
Plague, Inc.
Videogame (2012). Ndemic Creations. Platforms: IoS, Android; as vt Plague, Inc: Evolved, PC, Xbox One. / A deadly plague is spreading across the world at an alarming rate. People cower inside their houses. Transport gradually shuts down and the world goes dark as the last survivors are left mewling and puking in holes in the ground. The player's mission is to help these plagues spread and exterminate the human race.... / Plague Inc. is ...
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 ...