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Thursday 10 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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Weiss, Jiri
(1913-2004) Austro-Hungarian [ie Czech] film director and author, active as a maker of documentaries in 1930s Czechoslovakia, in the UK during World War Two where he made propaganda films, active as a director in France from 1947, in USA from 1969. He is of sf interest for The Lost Government; Or, Do You Really Like It?: A Fairy Play for Grown-Ups (1945), a Near Future Satire set just after the end of ...
McBain, Gordon
(1946-1992) US teacher and author who, in his brief sf career, wrote the moderately appealing but unremarkable Exoterra Young Adult sf series, The Path of Exoterra (1981) and Quest of the Dawnstar (1984), featuring in a Planetary Romance venue but expanding into fairly wide-flung Space Opera adventures. [JC]
Invisible Man, The
1. Film (1933). Universal. Directed by James Whale. Cast includes with small roles for Walter Brennan, John Carradine, E E Clive, William Harrigan, Una O'Connor, Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart and Henry Travers. Written by R C Sherriff and Philip Wylie, based on The Invisible Man (1897) by H G Wells. 71 minutes. Black and white. / As in ...
Prophecy
Film (1979). Paramount. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Written by David Seltzer. Cast includes Armand Assante, Richard A Dysart, Robert Foxworth and Talia Shire. 102 minutes. Colour. / A mercuric fungicide used by a Maine pulp-mill under the directorship of Bethel Isely (Dysart) has mutagenic effects, bringing Minimata disease and miscarriages to the local Native Americans – who are led by John Hawks ...
Kinew, Wab
(1981- ) Canadian politician and author, premier of Manitoba (2023-current); he is of some sf interest for the Young Adult Floraverse sequence beginning with Walking in Two Worlds (2021), whose young protagonist who attempts to balance the stress of real life as an indigenous teenager with literal excursions into a ...
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 ...