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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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Rigg, Robert B
(1913-1986) US soldier and author of several nonfiction texts on military topics. His sf novel War – 1974 (1958) puts into the didactic fictional form of a Future-War narrative about World War Three his speculations about developments in Weapons and tactics. After an initial exchange of nuclear ICBMs, and an attempted Soviet Invasion of America, East ...
Thorpe, Francis Newton
(1857-1920) US historian, political scientist and author, whose second novel, The Spoils of Empire: A Romance of the Old World and the New (1903), locates a Lost Race in the Mexico of late Aztec times. [JC]
When the Wind Blows
Animated film (1986). Meltdown Productions. Directed by Jimmy T Murakami. Written by Raymond Briggs, based on his own When the Wind Blows (graph 1982). Cast includes John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft. 84 minutes. Colour. / Before turning his bestselling Graphic Novel into a screenplay, Briggs made a Radio adaption, with the unfortunate effect that When the Wind Blows is ...
My Stepmother is an Alien
Film (1988). Weintraub/A Franklin R Levy/Ronald Parker Production/Catalina. Directed by Richard Benjamin. Written by Jericho Weingrod, Herschel Weingrod, Timothy Harris, Jonathan Reynolds. Cast includes Dan Aykroyd, Kim Basinger and Alyson Hannigan. 108 minutes. Colour. / This charmless and leaden-footed Sex comedy tells of an Alien woman (Basinger), fully human in appearance, who comes to Earth to learn the operation of a ...
Kelleam, Joseph E
(1913-1975) US author and civil servant, an occasional contributor to the sf field since publishing his first story, "Rust" (October 1939 Astounding). His first novel, Overlords from Space (1956 dos), is a routine tale in which Alien conquerors of Earth are defeated at last. The Little Men (February 1959 Amazing as "Hunters out of Time"; 1960; vt Hunters out of Time 2012 ...
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 ...