SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 27 July 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.
Site updated on 25 July 2024
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Arthur C Clarke Award
This award has been given since 1987 for the best sf novel whose UK first edition was published during the previous calendar year, and consists of an inscribed bookend and a sum of money from a grant initially donated by Arthur C Clarke. In 2001 the prize money – until then a constant £1000 – was increased to £2001 as a gesture to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); it has since risen by ...
4D Man
Film (1959; vt The Evil Force UK; vt Master of Terror US). Fairview/Universal. Coproduced and directed by Irwin Shortess Yeaworth Jr. Written by Theodore Simonson, Cy Chermak, from an idea by Jack H Harris. Cast includes James Congdon, Robert Lansing and Lee Meriwether. 85 minutes. Colour. / A small, interesting film made by the same producer/director team, Jack H Harris and Yeaworth, that had already made The Blob (1958). ...
Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy
Letter-size Cinema magazine printed on slick glossy paper. Two issues from DW Publications, March and June 1978. Editor: Douglas Wright. Publication was quarterly. / An interesting failure among the flood of film publications which hit US newsstands in the late 1970s, Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy featured more colour photos than most of its rivals. #1 had an Interview with Ray ...
Blob, The
1. Film (1958). Tonylyn/Paramount. Directed Irvin S Yeaworth Jr. Written by Kay Linaker, Irving H Milgate, Theodore Simonson. Cast includes Aneta Corseaut, Steve McQueen and Earl Rowe. 86 minutes. Colour. / An Alien Blob which grows by absorbing flesh reaches Earth in a hollow meteorite – whose impact is witnessed by the young hero Steve Andrews (McQueen) and his girlfriend Jane Martin (Corseaut) – and duly begins to consume the ...
Wykes, Alan
(1914-1993) Prolific UK author, mainly of nonfiction, whose sf Satire Happyland (1952) depicts an arcadian fantasy-Island in which happiness is literally obtainable. A UK magnate turns the place into a holiday camp; a new kind of bomb finally eliminates it. The nonfiction H G Wells in the Cinema (1977) surveys all the films up to publication date based on H G Wells's fiction. [JC]
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 ...