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Friday 13 March 2026
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.
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Underwater City, The
Film (1962). Neptune Productions/Columbia Pictures. Directed by Frank McDonald. Produced by Alex Gordon. Written by Gordon, Ruth Alexander and Orville Hampton (credited as Owen Harris). Cast includes Julie Adams, George DeNormand (uncredited), Chet Douglas, William Lundigan, Karen Norris and Cecil Benton Reid. Narrator: Vince Williams (uncredited). 78 minutes. Black and white in theatre prints; colour in television prints. / Dr Junius Halstead (Reid) has a dream of colonizing the ...
LaMaster, Slater
(1890-1936) US playwright and author whose Cupid Napoleon (7-28 January 1928 Argosy All-Story Weekly as "Luckett of the Moon"; 1934) purports to be a Planetary Romance but turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by Napoleon Bonaparte Luckett in the Near Future; the intended Satirical effects of the tale are seriously jumbled. ...
Didelot, Francis
Working name of Madagascar-born French author and screenwriter Roger-Francis Didelot (1902-1985), who wrote numerous detective novels, some as by José Bernard. He began to publish work of sf interest with La Machine à prédire la mort ["The Death Prediction Machine"] (October 1938-January 1939 Ric et Rac; 1939) with Charles Robert-Dumas (1875-1946), whose titular Machine can accurately foretell the time of death (see ...
Johns, W E
(1893-1968) UK air pilot, in active service with the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force throughout World War One until shot down and captured on 16 September 1918, and later author, who began producing boys' action adventures in 1930. His normal byline was Captain W E Johns (a rank he did not in reality attain, having risen no higher than Flying Officer). His total output exceeded 200 volumes, his popularity exceeding any other twentieth-century British ...
Hammond, Aubrey
(1894-1940) UK set designer, art director and illustrator, well known in these capacities; in active service during World War One. His first film as art director, Hyde Park Corner (1935), directed by Sinclair Hill, is Fantasy. Hammond is of importance as an sf illustrator almost solely for one work, his remarkably strong wraparound Art Deco cover for the first English translation of Thea ...
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 ...