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Friday 18 July 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.
Site updated on 16 July 2025
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Postmodernism and SF
"Modernism" is a useful term for the literature that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century to challenge the mimetic conventions of bourgeois fiction, but Postmodernism is not simply its more recent replacement. In fact, most contemporary serious writing remains insistently Modernist. The relationship between Modernism and Postmodernism (see Modernism in SF) is difficult to discuss, not least because the term "Postmodernism" has been used to point ...
Parts: The Clonus Horror
Film (1979; vt Clonus). Clonus Associates. Directed by Robert S Fiveson. Produced by Fiveson. Written by Ron Smith, Bob Sullivan, Myrl A Schreibman from a story by Sullivan. Cast includes Paulette Breen, Eileen Dietz (Dana), Tim Donnelly, Peter Graves, David Hooks, Dick Sargent (Dr Jameson) and Keenan Wynn. 90 minutes. Colour. / The young man Richard Knight (Donnelly) becomes dissatisfied with his life in a scientific colony somewhere in a western US desert, and escapes the ...
Biro, Val
Working name of Hungarian-born illustrator and author Balint Stephen Biro (1921-2014), in the UK from 1939 until his death. During his prolific career as a book illustrator, which began in the early 1940s – his woodcut illustrations for Paul Tabori's Private Gallery (coll 1944) are already extremely accomplished – he executed a number of covers for sf and fantasy books, though never in a style that demonstrated any deep affinity for the ...
Adventures of Brisco County, Jr, The
US tv series (1993-1994). Boam/Cuse Productions for Warner Bros. Series creators/executive producers Jeffrey Boam, Carlton Cuse. Coproduced by David Simkins, Paul Marks. Writers included Boam, Cuse, Simkins, Brad Kern, John McNamara, John Wirth. Directors included Kim Manners, Andy Tennant. Starred Bruce Campbell as Brisco, Julius Carry as Lord Bowler, Christian Clemenson as Socrates Poole. Recurring players included Billy Drago as John Bly, Kelly Rutherford as Dixie Cousins, John ...
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 ...