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Sunday 12 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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Knight, Kathleen Moore
(1890-1984) US author of detective novels, mostly under her own name, occasionally as by Alan Amos; of sf interest is Pray for a Miracle (1941; vt Jungle Murder 1947) as by Alan Amos, a Lost World tale, set in a tropical jungle where deadly artefacts point to a hidden civilization. [JC]
Wharton, Thomas
(1963- ) Canadian teacher, poet and author, active from before 1980, his first novel Icefields (1995) being an intensely aetherealized paean to the Canadian Wilderness that edges at points into the water margins of Fantastika. His second novel, Salamander (2001), which is fantasy, initiates a career-long interrogation and absorption into the story-engendering ontological fecundity of ...
People Who Own the Dark, The
Spanish/US film (1976; 1980 US). Original title Ultimo deseo; vt Planeta Ciego. Cinematic Releasing Corporation (US). Produced by Jorge Luis Renena Tomayo (Spain), Sean S Cunningham (US). Directed by Léon Klimovsky. Written by Gabriel Moreno Burgos (credited as Gabriel Burgos), Vicenta Aranda and Joaquim Jordà. Cast includes Alberto de Mendoza, Teresa Gimpera, Nadiuska, Paul Naschy (credited as Paul MacKay), Tomás Picó and Julia Saly. 94 ...
Koestler, Arthur
(1905-1983) Hungarian-born linguist – he wrote in four languages – journalist, playwright and author. An early Zionist, he began publishing in Tel Aviv in 1925, but abandoned Zionism and left the Middle East by 1929; as a Jewish Communist in Berlin in the early 1930s, he was clearly at risk; he later narrowly avoided execution in the Spanish Civil War, but was admitted to the UK in 1937, becoming a naturalized UK citizen in 1948. / All Koestler's books after the famous ...
Object Collection
US experimental theatrical and musical company formed in New York in 2004 by writer and stage director Kara Feely, and musician and composer Travis Just. They have produced a number of unconventional operas and performance pieces, including the "Utopian Space-Opera" You Are Under Our Space Control (album 2019; multimedia theatrical premiere 2020). The bare bones of the story – humans leaving a depleted earth to ...
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 ...