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Saturday 12 October 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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Coover, Robert
(1932-2024) US author who established a considerable reputation with his novels, in which Fabulation and political scatology mix fruitfully. His work could be seen to represent a Postmodernist intensification of the same milieu excoriated by Richard Condon; at times both authors seem to be describing a nightmare dream of orgy-choked life in the Late Roman Empire (see ...
Igor
Animated film (2008). Exodus Film Group/Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Directed by Tony Leondis. Written by Chris McKenna with John Hoffman, Leondis and Dimitri Toscas. Cast includes Steve Buscemi, John Cusack, Sean Hayes and Molly Shannon. 83 minutes. Colour. / The Kingdom of Malaria (see Ruritania) is beset by persistent cloud cover which has destroyed the population's ability to farm. So they turn to an alternative income stream: evil ...
McCaffrey, Anne
(1926-2011) US-born professional horsebreeder and author, in Ireland from the 1970s; mother of Gigi McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey. Most of her output was sf, though tinged with the tone and instruments of Fantasy: much of her main work, the enormous Pern sequence of Planetary Romance adventures (see below) is normally experienced as fantasy. She began ...
Aliens Are Coming, The
US made-for-TV film (1980). Quinn Martin Productions for NBC-TV. Executive producer Philip Saltzman. Directed by Harvey Hart. Written by Robert W Linski. Cast includes Eric Braeden, Melinda O Fee, Max Gail and Tom Mason. 100 minutes, later cut to 90 minutes. Colour. / From his research facility, astrophysicist Dr Scott Dryden (Mason) tracks an Spaceship descending to the Nevada desert; this proves to contain hostile Aliens ...
Langdon-Davies, John
(1897-1971) South African-born poet and author, mostly in the UK from the age of six, a pacifist in World War One, and much involved in Spain and its conflicts during the interWar years; he is of some sf interest for A Short History of the Future (1936), which – like J D Bernal's The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1929 chap) – is essentially an exercise in Futures Studies ...
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 ...