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Friday 22 September 2023
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Cloning of Joanna May, The
UK tv miniseries (1991). Granada/ITV. Produced by Gub Neal. Directed by Philip Saville. Written by Ted Whitehead from The Cloning of Joanna May (1989) by Fay Weldon. Cast includes Helen Adie, Brian Cox, Laura Eddy, Emma Hardy, Patricia Hodge, Siri Neal (Bethany) and Billie Whitelaw (Mavis). 180 minutes. Colour. / Obsessive business tycoon Carl May (Cox) effectively Clones his wife Joanna (Hodge), then repudiates ...
Davis, Gerry
(1930-1991) UK author, primarily for television, who collaborated with Kit Pedler in the creation of the menacing Cybermen for the Doctor Who storyline The Tenth Planet; these inimical Cyborgs became one of the series' most popular recurring foes. Davis was involved with fifteen Doctor Who episodes between 1966 and 1975, all of them concerning the Cybermen. Though his five Doctor Who ...
Newman, Robert
(1909-1998) US Radio scriptwriter and author, who began publishing work of genre interest with "I Belong to the Beast" in Horror Stories for June 1935, and who was active from around 1940 in radio; some early work appeared as by Roger Howard Norton, Robert Howard Norton and Rogers Howard Norton. His early novels – including Identity Unknown (1945) and The Enchanter (1962), the latter a thriller – were nonfantastic, and ...
Wilson, F Paul
(1946- ) US physician and author who began publishing sf with "The Cleaning Machine" for Startling Mystery Stories in March 1971, and who has written some mostly associational work as by Colin Andrews. His early career was much influenced by John W Campbell Jr, in whose Analog he published several of his best 1970s stories, including the early versions of tales ...
Rankin, Ian
(1960- ) Scottish author active from 1984, very much best known for his long Inspector Rebus sequence of policiers set in Edinburgh, beginning with Knots & Crosses (1987); the series is entirely nonfantastic, and is not listed below. His first novel, The Flood (1986), makes tentative occult connections between a gypsy girl and the eponymous Disaster, but they remain inexplicit. ...
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 ...