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Sunday 15 June 2025
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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Longyear, Barry B
(1942-2025) US author and editor who ran a printing company with his wife before beginning to write in 1977, beginning to publish work of genre interest with "The Tryouts" in Asimov's for November/December 1978. Before his 1981 hospitalization for alcoholism and addiction to prescription drugs – an experience which formed the basis of his non-sf novel Saint Mary Blue (1988) – he had already published prolifically, sometimes as by Frederick ...
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell
Japanese film (1968); original title Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro; vt Goke, the Vampire; vt Bodysnatcher from Hell; vt Body-Snatcher Goke. Shochiku. Directed by Hajime Sato. Written by Kyuzo Kobayashi and Susumu Takaku. Cast includes Kathy Horan, Nobuo Kaneko, Kazuo Kato, Eizo Kitamura, Hideo Ko, Yuko Kusunoki, Keiichi Noda, Tomomi Sato, Masaya Takahashi and Teruo Yoshida. 84 minutes. Colour. / On a Japanese airliner the politician Mr ...
Johnston, J M
(? - ) US author of whom nothing is known; he is credited with Brainchild (1980), an sf novel (see Mutants). [JC]
Cady, Jack
(1932-2004) US author, almost exclusively of fantasy and horror, although one novel, The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish (1982), is a genuine sf Dystopia set in a very bleakly conceived Near-Future right-wing USA; The Sons of Noah & Other Stories (coll 1992), containing fantasies, won a World Fantasy Award for best collection, and "The Night We Buried Road ...
Loontown
US live-action and animated film (2023). Positronish Productions. Directed by Nir Yaniv. Written by Lavie Tidhar. Cast includes Kenneth Jay, Al Lubel, Digger Mesch, Nathan Osgood, Katie Snyder, Russell Wilcox and Anne Wittman. 18 minutes. Colour. / Jokingly described by its creators as "The Citizen Kane of balloon noir movies" (itself a reference to the Boston Globe's description of Bobcat Goldthwait's ...
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 ...