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Tuesday 8 October 2024
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.
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Coover, Robert
(1932-2024) US author who established a considerable reputation with his novels, in which Fabulation and political scatology mix fruitfully. His work could be seen to represent a Postmodernist intensification of the same milieu excoriated by Richard Condon; at times both authors seem to be describing a nightmare dream of orgy-choked life in the Late Roman Empire (see ...
Proto SF
Meaningful use of the term "proto science fiction" obviously depends on one's Definition of the term "science fiction", just as the use of the term "taproot texts" [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] depends on a moderately stable definition of the term "fantasy"; indeed, the quest for sf's literary ancestry and "origins" is as much a dimension of the problem of definition as a ...
Island Claws
Film (1980; vt Giant Claws). Produced by Ted Swanson. Directed by Hernan Cardenas. Written by Jack Cowden and Ricou Browning from a story by Hernan Cardenas and Colby Cardenas. Cast includes Dick Callinan, Steve Hanks, Robert Lansing, Jo McDonnell and Barry Nelson. 90 minutes, cut to 82 minutes. Colour. / Reporter Jan Raines (McDonnell) visit a small Island off the Florida coast to report on Dr McNeal (Nelson), who is working to improve crabs as a ...
Invisible Boy, The
Film (1957). Pan/MGM. Directed by Herman Hoffman. Written by Cyril Hume, based on "Invisible Boy" (23 June 1956 Saturday Evening Post; vt "The Brain Child" in Tomorrow's Gift, coll 1958) by Edmund Cooper. Cast includes Philip Abbott, Diane Brewster, Richard Eyer and Harold J Stone. 90 minutes. Black and white. / In this well-written and well-made ...
Beware! The Blob
Film (1971; vt Son of Blob; vt The Blob Returns). Jack H Harris Enterprises. Produced by Anthony Harris. Directed by Larry Hagman. Screenplay by Anthony Harris and Jack Woods from a story by Richard Clair and Jack H Harris. Cast includes Godfrey Cambridge, Gwynne Gilford, Richard Walker Jr (credited as Robert Walker) and Richard Webb. 91 minutes. Colour. / Oil pipeline layer Chester Hargis (Cambridge) returns from Alaska to his home town in ...
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 ...