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Thursday 20 August 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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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld (see Flat Earth) resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the ...
Night of the Big Heat
Film (1967; vt Island of the Burning Damned). Planet. Directed by Terence Fisher. Written by Ronald Liles, Pip Baker, Jane Baker, based on The Night of the Big Heat (1959) by John Lymington. Cast includes Patrick Allen, Peter Cushing, Sarah Lawson, Christopher Lee and Jane Merrow. 97 minutes, cut to 94 minutes. Colour. / An island off the UK coast experiences a freak heatwave, during which there are a number of mysterious ...
Lindall, Edward
Pseudonym of Australian author Edward Ernest Smith (1915-1978), in whose Near Future sf novel, Roar of the Lion (1969), a 1980s insurrection, modelled on the example of the Viet Cong, ignites an Island in the South Pacific; the major powers soon intervene. [JC]
Kemp, Randall H
(1852-1914) US field mineralogist from 1890 or earlier on expeditions in Pacific Rim states of America, and author of A Half-Breed Dance and Other Far Western Stories: Mining Camp, Indian and Hudson's Bay Tales Based on the Experiences of the Author (coll 1909), which contains two tales of interest: "Underneath Spokane" features a virtual Hollow Earth of underground caverns; and in the Lost World described in "The ...
Ryan, G H
(? -? ) UK author of Fifteen Months in the Moon, Giving a Full Description of its Inhabitants: Their Appearance: Customs: Laws: Modes of Locomotion: Animals: Plants, etc (1880) whose narrator, who has gained the power of Telekinesis, travels to the Moon, where he finds an Alien civilization boasting advanced forms of ...
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 ...