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Friday 20 May 2022
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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Man Who Turned to Stone, The
Film (1957). Clover Productions/Columbia Pictures. Directed by László Kardos. Produced by Sam Katzman. Written by Bernard Gordon. Cast includes Charlotte Austin, Tina Carver, Paul Cavanagh, Ann Doran, William Hudson, Victor Jory, George Lynn, Victor Varconi, Friedrich von Ledebur (credited as Frederick Ledebur) and Jean Willes. 71 minutes. Black and white. / Social worker Adams (Austin) and her romantic interest, state psychiatrist Dr Jess Rogers (Hudson), grow increasingly ...
Cross, Gillian
(1945- ) UK author, primarily for children, in various genres, including the Demon Headmaster sequence of horror tales [see Checklist below]. Of sf interest are Born of the Sun (1983), in which the search for an Incan Lost World intersects with family romance; New World (1992), in which adventures within a Virtual Reality world turn nightmarish; Pictures in the Dark (1996), about the consequences of the protagonist's photographing an unknown animal; and the Dark Ground ...
DeMatteis, John Marc
(1963- ) US author of a Graphic Novel, The Complete Moonshadow (graph 1998) with Jon J Muth, whose eponymous protagonist, born of a hippy and a seemingly nonsubstantial Alien, embarks upon a Fantastic Voyage through the universe, looking for something like truth. [JC]
Angel's Egg
Japanese Original Video Animation film (1985); original title Tenshi no Tamago. Studio Deen. Created by Yoshitaka Amano and Mamoru Oshii. Directed and written by Mamoru Oshii. Voice cast: Mako Hyōdō and Jinpachi Nezu. 71 minutes. Colour. / A young man (Nezu) watches a vast eye-like sphere, adorned in praying statues, descend into the sea. Meanwhile a girl (Hyōdō), carrying a large egg under her dress, travels through a bleak megalith-strewn landscape to enter a derelict ...
Williams, Ralph
(1914-1959) Working name of Ralph William Slone, US author of some half a dozen stories published in Astounding from 1940 to 1958. "Business as Usual, During Alterations" (July 1958 Astounding) deals optimistically with the Economics of free commodities made available by Matter Duplication, suggesting that this Technology – initially introduced by devious Aliens to disrupt world society – would simply flip America from an economy based on scarcity to an almost indistinguishable ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...