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Tuesday 18 February 2025
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 17 February 2025
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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Wilson, Colin
(1931-2013) UK author of speculative works, who remains best known for his first book, The Outsider (1956), in which he gave graphic expression to the brilliant autodidactism, the erratic system-building mentality, the tendency to treat himself (and a previous few others) as a natural elite, and the voracity for new mental sensations that would mark the very numerous titles he would produce over the next several decades, many of them of some indirect interest to sf and fantasy ...
King, Harold
(1945-2010) US author whose name has also been wrongly recorded as a joint pseudonym. King concentrates his focus on Technothrillers like Paradigm Red (1975; vt Red Alert 1977), where events – in this case the sabotage of a nuclear facility – hover at the edge of sf. World War III (1982), a Tie novelizing the Television drama, sets the beginning of ...
Planet Earth
Made-for-tv film (1974). ABC Directed by Marc Daniels. Teleplay Gene Roddenberry, Juanita Bartlett. Cast includes Ted Cassidy, Janet Margolin, Diana Muldaur and John Saxon. 75 minutes. Colour. / One of executive producer Roddenberry's several attempts to repeat the success of Star Trek, this pilot for a proposed series – similar in concept to his earlier Genesis II – failed ...
Greer, Richard
Joint pseudonym of Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg used for the stories "The Great Kladnar Race" (December 1956 Amazing) and "The Secret of the Shan" (June 1957 Fantastic). According to Silverberg the earlier Greer story "Calling Captain Flint" (August 1956 Amazing Stories) is by Garrett alone. [PN/DRL] links / ...
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 ...