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Sunday 26 January 2025
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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Lynch, David
(1946-2025) US actor, artist and musician and primarily filmmaker whose work extended Surrealism into mainstream Cinema and Television. Lynch's films tend to examine the uneasy truce between rationality and the unconscious mind by revealing how intimations of Sex, Identity and death make themselves felt in modern American communities. The term Lynchian was defined by David Foster ...
Mutations
Film (1973). Getty Picture Corp/Columbia. Directed by Jack Cardiff. Written by Robert D Weinbach, Edward Mann. Cast includes Tom Baker, Michael Dunn, Julie Ege and Donald Pleasence. 92 minutes. Colour. / In this scientifically ludicrous UK film a Mad Scientist (Pleasence) attempts to combine plant with animal life, aided by the dwarf owner of a carnival freak-show (Dunn), who obtains human guinea-pigs for his experiments and exhibits the results. Tom ...
Crossley, Robert
(1945- ) Critic and editor, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Primarily known for his studies on Olaf Stapledon, including the biography Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future (1994), and the edited collection of letters traded between Stapledon and his wife Agnes Zena Miller titled ...
Emmerich, Roland
(1955- ) German filmmaker. His first three features were made in Germany: the cold-war Space Station thriller Das Arche Noah Prinzip (1984; vt The Noah's Ark Principle US), supernatural fantasy Joey (1985; vt Making Contact), and mining-planet action piece Moon 44 (1989). The last featured US actor Dean Devlin, who would go on to write and produce on ...
Doomsday Machine
Film (1972; vt Escape from Planet Earth). First Leisure/Cine-Find. Produced by Harry Hope. Directed by Herbert J Leder, Hope and Lee Sholem. Written by Stuart J Byrne from his original story. Special effects partially by David L Hewitt. Cast includes Ruta Lee, Denny Miller, Mala Powers, Lori Scott, unknown, Bobby Van, Henry Wilcoxon and Grant Williams. 83 minutes. Colour. / Project Astra is a two-year ...
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 ...