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Sunday 7 December 2025
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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Piranha
Film (1978). New World. Executive producers Roger Corman, Jeff Schechtman. Directed by Joe Dante. Written by John Sayles, based on a story by Sayles and Richard Robinson. Cast includes Paul Bartel, Bradford Dillman, Kevin McCarthy, Heather Menzies, Dick Miller, Barbara Steele and Keenan Wynn. 94 minutes. Colour. / The army has been creating cold-water-tolerant man-eating piranhas for use ...
Tabler, Joseph
(1949- ) US abody surfer, bookseller and author, based for all his activities in California; he ran the well-known Joseph Tabler Books in San Diego 1989-1999. Of his thrillers, three have some sf interest: Capitol Hill Clones (1981), a political Satire involving a scatty use of Clones; The Microwave Caper (1981), in which a mysterious ...
Knausgaard, Karl Ove
(1968- ) Norwegian author, mostly in the UK from 2017, who does not normally use the Norwegian spelling of his surname, Knausgård, for works translated into English; best-known for the sustained, multi-volume, dedicatedly nonfantastic, autofictional Min kamp ["My Struggle", echoing Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925)] sequence beginning with Om høsten (2015; trans Martin Aitken as Autumn ...
Lockout
Film (2012). EuropaCorp/Open Road Films. Directed by James Mather and Stephen St Leger. Written by Mather, St Leger and Luc {Besson}. Cast includes Joseph Gilgun, Maggie Grace and Guy Pearce. 91 minutes. Colour. / The film optimistically boasts that it is based on an original idea by Besson, but there is not a single fresh thought in this morass of Clichés. Snow (the usually impressive Pearce, apparently taking a holiday from acting to wallow 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 ...