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Saturday 21 September 2024
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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Miller, Ruth
(? - ) US author of a Young Adult sf novel, The Thirty-First of April (1982), set in a Parallel World. [JC]
SFRA Newsletter
US Digest-format magazine, the official newsletter, mostly monthly, of the Science Fiction Research Association; founded 1971, current, 215 issues to January/February 1995, edited by Fred Lerner (1971-1974), Beverly Friend (1974-1978), Roald Tweet (1978-1981), Elizabeth Anne Hull (1981-1984), Richard W Miller (1984-1987), Robert A ...
Conceptual Breakthrough
The legends of Prometheus and of Dr Faustus contain a central image which is still vigorous in sf: the hero in his lust for knowledge goes against the will of God and, though he succeeds in his quest, he is finally punished for his overweening pride and disobedience. Adam eating the forbidden apple is another version of the legend. Its reverberations resonate throughout the whole of literature. / The Faustian version of the quest for knowledge – it lives on in Mary ...
Attack of the Crab Monsters
Film (1957). Los Altos/Allied Artists. Directed by Roger Corman. Written by Charles B Griffith. Cast includes Leslie Bradley, Pamela Duncan, Richard Garland and Russell Johnson. 70 minutes cut to 64 minutes. Black and white. / Two giant crabs, mutations (see Mutants) caused by radiation from an H-bomb test on an island, scuttle out of the sea and destroy all of one and most of another expedition to the island. Eerily, ...
Rankin, Ian
(1960- ) Scottish author active from the early 1980s, 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. ...
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 ...