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Sunday 24 September 2023
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.
Site updated on 18 September 2023
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Ash, Alan
(1909-1988) UK author in whose sf adventure, Conditioned for Space (1955), a sleeper, having been encased in a block of ice for a century, awakens (see Sleeper Awakes) to find himself – after scientists transform him into a kind of Cyborg – in the front line of Earth defence in a space war. [JC]
Half Japanese
American lo-fi punk band (sometimes written as ½ Japanese), formed in 1974 by the brothers Jad and David Fair. In their early days they were a shambolic but enthusiastic duo, comprising drums, electric guitar and strangulated vocals, with songs usually 1-2 minutes long; their first vinyl release, the 45rpm "Calling all Girls" (1977), had eleven tracks. Gradually they became more polished – or more studiously shambolic – adding further band members and longer songs; though Jad ...
Thompson, Ray
(? - ) UK author of an Young Adult sf novel, Ayron IV (1975), whose young protagonists, roaming across the eponymous planet (see Colonization of Other Worlds), find vehicular tracks that signal an Alien presence; and so it turns it out. Lessons in Xenobiology and Ecology are ...
Saturn 3
Film (1980). Transcontinental. Produced and directed by Stanley Donen. Written by Martin Amis, from a story by John Barry. Cast includes Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel. 87 minutes. Colour. / With a good director like Donen and a screenplay by Martin Amis, it is difficult to see how so obscene and silly an exploitation movie could come to be. Douglas and Fawcett play the couple alternating romping in bed ...
Koch, Eric
(1919-2018) German-born author and television producer, in UK from 1935, in Canada from 1940, several of whose novels are of some sf interest. In The French Kiss: A Tongue in Cheek Political Fantasy (1969), set in a Near-Future Canada threatened – as usual – by separatism, a Reincarnated colleague of Napoleon muses on de Gaulle's similarity to the long-dead Emperor. ...
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 ...