SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 19 May 2022
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.
Site updated on 18 May 2022
Sponsor of the day: Dublin 2019 – An Irish Worldcon
Zítra Vstanu a Opařím Se Čajem
Film (1977; vt Tomorrow I'll Wake up and Scald Myself with Tea). Filmové studio Barrandov. Directed by Jindřich Polák. Written by Polák, Miloš Macourek, based on a story by Josef Nesvadba. Cast includes Vlastimil Brodský, Petr Kostka, Vladimír Menšík and Jiří Sovák. 90 minutes. Colour. / Not widely known in the West (although it has been given a UK Television showing), this Czech production is one of the most ...
Phantom of the Movies' VideoScope, The
US Letter-size saddle-stapled Cinema magazine printed on newsprint. Published by PhanMedia L L C. Editor/publisher: Joe Kane. 1993-current. Publication schedule is quarterly. / Beginning as a newsletter-style Fanzine or Newszine in 1993, this title quickly evolved into a Semiprozine originally dedicated to publishing numerous reviews of films released to the home video market. The reviews are mostly written by Kane himself. Although covering multiple genres, the magazine always had a strong ...
Harris, Robert
(1957- ) UK journalist and author whose first novel, Fatherland (1992), a late Hitler Wins detective tale set in an Alternate History 1964 where Hitler is alive and Joseph Kennedy (1888-1969) is the American president, tended to be acclaimed by the general press as being original. The greyish noir atmosphere of the tale, and the lifelessness of the Berlin depicted, are in fact strongly conveyed; and it may be that some reviewers sufficiently competent to identify his ...
Mackelworth, R W
(1930-2000) UK author and insurance salesman who began publishing sf with "The Statue" for New Worlds in 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 a single Keep, Starflight 3000 (1972) – which involves some interesting Terraforming of both the Moon ...
Bates, Harry
Working name of US editor and author Hiram Gilmore Bates III (1900-1981), who began his career with the Clayton chain of Pulp magazines in the 1920s, working as editor of an adventure magazine. When William Clayton, the owner, suggested that Bates initiate a period-adventure companion to it, he successfully counterproposed a magazine to be called Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which would compete with Amazing Stories. Bates edited the magazine – whose title was soon abbreviated to ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for November 1966, where much of his earlier criticism also appeared. This criticism, despite some studiously ...