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Friday 22 September 2023
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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Kitchell, Joseph Gray
(1862-1945) US businessman, photographer and author, whose early novella, The Story of the "Kranbach Nocturne" (1905 chap), treats the eponymous Basilisk as soul-saving. His full-length sf novel, The Earl of Hell (1924), combines high adventure – its protagonist travels the world in search of new sources of radium, is kidnapped, foils a plot to supply "Hunovia" (i.e. Germany) with a brand-new ...
Johnson, Denis
(1949-2017) US author, born in Germany, and raised in various countries where his father, in the American State Department, was stationed; he began to publish poetry in the late 1960s. His first novel, Angels (1983), has no fantastic element, but his second, Fiskadoro (1985), is set in Post-Holocaust Key West after a period of Nuclear Winter, where an aged inhabitant confuses the desolation of ...
Mind Snatchers, The
Film (1972; vt The Happiness Cage; vt The Demon Within). International Film Ventures, Ltd. Directed by Bernard Girard. Written by Dennis Reardon and Ron Whyte, based on Reardon's play The Happiness Cage. Cast includes Joss Ackland, Ronny Cox, Ralph Meeker, Birthe Neumann and Christopher Walken. 94 minutes. Colour. / US Army private James H Reese (Walken) has an altercation with guests at a party given by his girlfriend Lisa (Neumann) which ultimately results in ...
Kirk, Laurence
Pseudonym of Scottish naval officer and author Eric Andrew Simson (1895-1956), who was in active service during World War One and also published under his own name. His fiction as Kirk includes one sf novel, The Gale of the World (1948), set in a Near Future England where a scientific Discovery threatens the stability of the world. [JC]
Hamlin, V T
(1900-1993) US Comics writer and artist who created the Alley Oop (which see) comic strip in 1932, initially as Prehistoric SF but later ranging much more widely via Time Travel, beginning with Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure (6 March 1939-23 March 1940 Alley Oop; graph 2013); there is even a trip to the Moon in ...
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 ...