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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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Long, Doug

(? - ) Canadian author of Fireball (1977) with Vic Mayhew, in which an Asteroid is discovered to be on target to hit Earth, causing a planetary Disaster. [JC]

["Visit from Space"] Czech (see Czech and Slovak SF) tv film (1977). Ostrava studio, Czechoslovak Television. Directed by Otakar Kosko. Written by Drahoslav Makovicka, based on Roadside Picnic (1972; trans 1977) by Arkady and Boris Strugatski. Cast includes Zdeněk Hradilák as Professor Pillman, Přemysl Matoušek as MrchoŽrout (literally "scavenger", but ...

Bennett, Ron

(1933-2006) UK Fanzine editor, author and book dealer – for many years a stalwart of UK Convention dealers' rooms – whose 1950s fanzine was Ploy (13 issues 1954-1959, numbered #2 to #14) and who from 1959 to 1971 edited and published Skyrack (which see), the British Newszine of the 1960s, all issues of which were eventually assembled with related material as ...

Smith, Howard S

(? - ) Canadian author whose sf novel, Howard S Smith's I, Robot (2008), while its author explicitly disavows any connection with any other story or film with the familiar title, does clearly depend on most of them in the Technothriller story of a twenty-first century Robot detective bound by the three Laws of Robotics who must uncover an ...

Suicide

People have unfortunately decided to end their own lives throughout history for various reasons, and suicides of this type are regularly depicted in sf as well as other forms of literature. However, suicide on a broader scale – involving numerous citizens, all members of a society, or even an entire species – is a distinctive theme in sf. Humans or Aliens may eradicate themselves in a usually inadvertent but predictable fashion, usually by means of a ...

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 ...