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Saturday 26 April 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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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Man in the White Suit, The
Film (1951). Ealing Studios. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. Written by Roger MacDougall, John Dighton, Mackendrick, based on the play The Man in the White Suit by MacDougall. Cast includes Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker and Ernest Thesiger. 85 minutes, cut to 81 minutes. Black and white. / A Scientist creates a monomolecular artificial fibre (see Monomolecular Wire) that neither wears out ...
Johnson, Stanley
(1940- ) UK politician, businessman, environmentalist and author. His novels, beginning with Gold Drain (1967), tend to be political/spy thrillers, some of which are sufficiently explorative to be thought of as Technothrillers. The Marburg Virus (1982; vt The Virus 2020) follows the efforts of an epidemiologist to trace an incipient Pandemic back to its source, with a ...
Robinson, Jeanne
(1948-2010) US-born dancer, choreography and author, in Canada from 1975 or earlier, marrying Spider Robinson in 1975; the Stardance trilogy, where dance (see Arts) is presented as a likely form of human-Alien Communication, was written with her husband (whom see for details). [JC]
Magnetic Monster, The
Film (1953). A-Men Productions/United Artists. Directed by Curt Siodmak. Written by Siodmak, Ivan Tors. Cast includes Jean Byron, Richard Carlson and King Donovan. 76 minutes. Black and white. / A new isotope, created in a laboratory, sucks in nearby energy and doubles its size every few hours; eventually it may destroy the Earth. The first part of the film shows it being tracked down by scientific investigators, puzzled at the strange magnetic ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...