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Saturday 7 February 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 6 February 2026
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Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Meek, Joe
(1929-1967) UK music producer and composer, famous for creating a distinctive, innovative and influential sound. His lifelong interest in "outer space" resulted in one early concept-album, I hear a new world – an outer space music fantasy by Joe Meek (1960). Set mostly on the moon and concerning aliens called Globbots, Saroos and Dribcots it strives to create sonic landscapes by adding weird sound effects to blues and skiffle songs. But Meek is more famous as a producer and ...
Rollover
Film (1981). IPC Films/Orion. Directed by Alan J Pakula. Written by David Shaber, from a story by Shaber, Howard Kohn, David Weir. Cast includes Hume Cronyn, Jane Fonda and Kris Kristofferson. 115 minutes. Colour. / Rollover has a banker (Kristofferson) and an oil-company chairman (Fonda) uncovering a conspiracy in which the Saudi Arabians have, with the help of US banks, been secretly dumping dollars and buying gold. Threatened with exposure, the Saudis withdraw all funds ...
Fireside Magazine
US professional Online Magazine available as an ebook by subscription only. 103 issues, Spring 2012 to Summer 2022. / Fireside was produced by Brian J White in Boston, Massachusetts. White sought financing via crowdfunding; his intentions were to publish "great stories, regardless of genre". There were three preliminary issues dated Spring, Summer and Winter 2012, which were also downloadable, and which covered the spectrum of speculative fiction, ...
Stow, Randolph
(1935-2010) Australian author, in England from 1966, whose novels tend to embed deeply alienated protagonists into venues – some remote, some distressingly intimate for Australians, as in Midnite: The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy (1967) – which are described with anthropological precision, resulting in tales like The Suburbs of Hell (1984), which, whether non-genre or sf/fantasy, verge constantly upon fable. In Tourmaline (1963) the venue is ...
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 ...