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Saturday 18 July 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.
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Terrorvision
Film (1986). Altar/Empire. Executive producer Charles Band. Directed by Ted Nicolaou. Written by Nicolaou. Cast includes Chad Allen, Diane Franklin, Gerrit Graham, Jonathan Gries and Mary Woronov. 83 minutes. Colour. / This lurid exploitation-movie-cum-satire has good moments. A hungry Alien beast first appears on the television screen, then materializes in the house, of wife-swapping vulgarians, a ...
Weird Tales of the Future
US Comic (1952-1953). 8 issues. Stanley Morse (Key). Artists include Ross Andru, Eugene E. Hughes, Tony Mortellaro, Ed Smalle and Basil Wolverton. 4 or 5 comic strips per issue, plus 2 text pages (fiction, save for a non-fiction piece "Flying Saucers, Meteors, or What?" arguing "it is logical to assume that some of the meteors [being reported] may be rocket ships!"). Issue #8 reprints the five strips from ...
Herbert, Benson
(1912-1991) UK editor and author with a master's degree in science who began publishing sf in US magazines with "The World Without" in Wonder Stories for February 1931 and was fairly active in the 1930s; this mentions the concept of "some other world parallel to our own" and its sequel "The World Within" (August 1931 Wonder Stories) appears to contain the first use of Parallel World in ...
Otis, James
Working name of US journalist, editor and author James Otis Kaler (1848-1912), who published at least 175 novels, apparently most or all of them for boys. Titles of sf interest include – but may not be restricted to – three Lost Race tales: The Treasure Finders: A Boy's Adventure in Nicaragua (1889); The Search for the Silver City: A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan (1893), in which a Mayan survival is discovered in the remote ...
Doohan, James
(1920-2005) Canadian actor, best known for playing Scotty, the irascible but lovable Scottish Flight Engineer for the Starship Enterprise in various Star Trek Television series and films; another sf series role was Commander Carnarvin in the first season of Jason of Star Command (1978-1980). He is listed as co-author with ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...