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Saturday 13 December 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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Varley, John
(1947-2025) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Picnic on Nearside" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for August 1974, and who was soon thought to be the most significant new sf writer of the late 1970s. He was fresh, he was complex, he understood the imaginative implications of transformative developments like cloning (see Clones) and Identity Transfer, many of ...
Three Stooges Meet Hercules, The
Film (1962). Normandy Productions/Columbia Pictures. Produced by Norman Maurer. Directed by Edward Bernds. Written by Elwood Ullman from a story by Maurer. Cast includes Samson Burke, John Cliff, Joe DeRita, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, George N Neise, Quinn Redeker, Emil Sitka and Vicki Trickett. 89 minutes. Black and white. / Working at Dismal's Drug Store in New York, the Stooges – Moe (Howard), Larry (Fine), and Curly Joe (DeRita) – meet ...
Deepstar Six
Film (1988). Carolco/Tri-Star. Directed and coproduced by Sean S Cunningham. Written by Lewis Abernathy, Geof Miller, based on a story by Abernathy. Cast includes Taurean Blacque, Joyce Collins, Greg Evigan and Miguel Ferrer. 99 minutes. Colour. / A deep-sea missile base is being installed by underwater (see Under the Sea) station DeepStar Six. Explosives open a vast cavern under the ocean floor, in which dwells a monstrous arthropod; it destroys two ...
Johnson, Charles
Almost certainly the joint pseudonym of Gena Metcalf (? - ) and Tom Metcalf (? - ), most of whose work has been nonfiction for Young Adult readers. Of sf interest is Pieces of Eight (1989), whose young protagonists travel by Timeslip to the world of the pirate Blackbeard, where they have adventures; this title was announced as beginning the ...
Evans, E Everett
(1893-1958) US sf fan and author, who began to publish relatively late in life, his first story of genre interest being "Perfection" for The Vortex #2 in 1947, and who had mixed success, though there is no doubt of the affection in which other Californian sf writers and fans held him, as evinced in the many tributes to him – from writers such as E E "Doc" Smith and A E van Vogt – ...
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 ...