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Monday 13 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: John Howard
Flying Saucers over Istanbul
Turkish film (1955; original title Ucan Daireler Istanbulda). Birsel Film. Directed and written by Orhan Erçin. Cast includes Orhan Erçin, Mirella Monro, Zafer Önen, Türkan Samil and Özcan Tekgül. 73 minutes. Black and white. / A lonely hearts club for rich but unattractive women hires belly-dancers to lure potential husbands to the venue; they are delighted when two men turn up, but the men are Sapsal (Önen) ...
Stolbov, Bruce
(1950- ) US author whose Ruined Earth novel, Last Fall (1987), describes the dilemma faced by a Pastoral wood-dwelling pacifistic enclave of survivors when gun-bearing intruders arrive, decades after a nuclear Holocaust. The tale is notable for the quiet warmth of its depiction of a renewed natural world. [JC]
Grazier, James
(1902-1975) US author whose Hydra (1969) is a routine Young Adult tale, and in whose awkwardly written Runts of 61 Cygni C (1970) humans encounter approximately humanoid Aliens – they are one-eyed – and lots of kinky Sex on the planet 61 Cygni C. [JC]
KULT: The Temple of Flying Saucers
Videogame (1989; vt Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess in the US). ERE Informatique. Designed by "Arbeit von Spacekraft" (Johan Robson). Platforms: Amiga, AtariST, DOS. / In the future of The Temple of Flying Saucers, humanity has split into three distinct subspecies after a (presumably nuclear) apocalypse: the Psionically gifted Tuners, the physically mutated Protozorqs and the unaltered Normals. The player ...
Howard, Hayden
(1925-2014) US author who began publishing sf with "It" in Planet Stories for January 1952, followed by eighteen further magazine stories with the last appearing in 1971. His one sf novel, The Eskimo Invasion (stories April 1965-April 1967 Galaxy; fixup 1967), set rather unusually in Canada, comprises a speculative view of Overpopulation problems conveyed through an episodic tale ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...