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Thursday 16 July 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.
Site updated on 14 July 2026
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Clever Dummy, A
US silent film (1917). Keystone Film Company. Directed by Ferris Hartman, Robert P Kerr, Herman C Raymaker and Mack Sennett. Written by Mack Sennett. Cast includes Claire Anderson, James DeLano, James Donnelly and Ben Turpin. 19 minutes. Black and white. / An inventor (Donnelly) and his assistant (DeLano) build a "mechanical dummy" (see Inventions), intending to sell it as a vaudeville attraction. It is modelled on the building's janitor, Peter Clay ...
Kirstein, Rosemary
(1953- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Act Naturally" in Asimov's Science Fiction for July 1982. Her first novel was The Steerswoman (1989), opening the Steerswoman sequence which initially has a fantasy-quest flavour – with swords and other items of medieval Technology, wizards and even so-called demons, dragons and goblins – but proves to be set on ...
Priest, Christopher
(1943-2024) UK author, first trained as an accountant; active in Fanzines and Fandom from 1964; married 1981-1987 to Lisa Tuttle, 1988-2011 to Leigh Kennedy, and partner of Nina Allan from 2011 (they married in 2023). He published several Ties under various pseudonyms, only two of which he formally acknowledged: John ...
Living and Working in Space: The Countdown Has Begun
US tv documentary film (1993). Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education. Directed by Rob Mikuriya. Written by Stephen R Heard, Rob Mikuriya, Roger Scott Olsen, and Willie Reale. Cast includes Cathy Bates, Christine Cousins, Joseph Cousins, Raymond Cruz, Jaime Escalante, Rodney A Grant, Jackée Harry, Esai Morales, Pat Morita, Vincent Schiavelli, James Stephens III, Jeffrey Tamblor, Billy Bob Thornton, Sheila Tousey, Jesse Ventura and "Weird Al" ...
Anti-Utopia
A term sometimes used to denote the dark opposite of Utopia, as surveyed in this encyclopedia's entry Dystopia (the term normally used here). For example, James Blish in The Issue at Hand: Studies in Contemporary Magazine Science Fiction (coll 1964) as by William Atheling Jr describes The Space Merchants (July-August 1952 Galaxy as "Gravy Planet"; rev and ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...