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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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Marshall, Peyton
(1972- ) US author active since the early 2000s, her short work being exclusively nonfantastic. Her first novel, Goodhouse (2014), though its plot adheres to the dominant Near Future Young Adult Dystopia model, is written with a fluent literary intensity that lifts it from some of the constraints implied by its literal obedience to genre conventions. The young ...
Behemoth, the Sea Monster
Film (1959; vt The Giant Behemoth US). Diamond/Allied Artists. Directors Douglas Hickox, Eugène Lourié. Written by Lourié. Cast includes Gene Evans, Jack MacGowran, Leigh Madison and André Morell. 80 minutes, cut to 72 minutes. Black and white. / Lourié made several Monster Movies during his career, including The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms ...
Fantasy
There is no Definition of SF that excludes fantasy, other than prescriptive definitions so narrow that, were they applied, this encyclopedia would be reduced to ten per cent of its present length. We are talking about problems of definition raised by not a minority but a majority of all genre writings. Among the Genre-SF writers at least some of whose work would be excluded are Terry Bisson, Ray ...
Tiphaigne de la Roche, C F
(1729-1774) French author of some works of fantasy with Proto-SF elements, three of which were miscellaneously assembled as Amilec; Ou la graine d'hommes qui sert à peupler les planétes (1753; trans anon as Amilec; Or, the Seeds of Mankind 1753), Zamar, député à la Lune par Amilec ["Zamar, Delegated to the Moon by Amilec"] [for full subtitle see Checklist] (1754 2vols) and ...
MacKay, Kenneth
(1859-1935) Australian soldier, politician, sportsman and author whose Yellow Peril tale, The Yellow Wave: A Romance of the Asiatic Invasion of Australia (1895), describes a Chinese Invasion in 1954 under the guidance of Russia, the romance which causes the death of the secret leader of the invaders and the Australian he loves, and the continuing war which the Australians seem likely to lose. MacKay was given an OBE in ...
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 ...