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Sunday 13 July 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.
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Hanks, Keith
(1940- ) UK illustrator and author of a Science Fantasy novel, Falk (1972), set in a Post-Holocaust Britain so disgustingly decadent that God has sent the protagonist, all-unknowing of the honour, to clean things up. [JC]
Phantom, The
African jungle-dwelling Comics Superhero partially inspired by Tarzan and created by Lee Falk – also the creator of Mandrake the Magician – as the star of a daily newspaper strip whose first appearance was on 17 February 1936 and which continues to be widely syndicated today. At the outset the strip was briefly drawn by Falk ...
Kirby, Josh
(1928-2001) Nickname and working name of UK illustrator Ronald William Kirby, trained at Liverpool School of Art. He was occasionally though rarely credited as Ron Kirby. Kirby's work in sf began in the mid-1950s with covers for Dan Morgan's Cee-Tee Man (1955), the 1956 Pan paperback of Ian Fleming's Moonraker (1955) and for Authentic Science Fiction (6 ...
Saturn 3
Film (1980). Transcontinental. Produced and directed by Stanley Donen. Written by Martin Amis, from a story by John Barry. Cast includes Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel. 87 minutes. Colour. / With a good director like Donen and a screenplay by Martin Amis, it is difficult to see how so obscene and silly an exploitation movie could come to be. Douglas and Fawcett play the couple alternating romping in bed ...
Coffindaffer, Rebecca
(? - ) US author whose Young Adult Crownchasers Space Opera sequence, beginning with Crownchasers (2020), follows the tribulations of an heir to the throne of a Galactic Empire after she discovers that she – and other aspirants – must chase a "royal seal" down the star lanes; the one who finds this ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...