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Friday 7 February 2025
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.
Site updated on 3 February 2025
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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Robinson, Jeanne
(1948-2010) US-born dancer, choreography and author, in Canada from 1975 or earlier, marrying Spider Robinson in 1975; the Stardance trilogy, where dance (see Arts) is presented as a likely form of human-Alien Communication, was written with her husband (whom see for details). [JC]
Anderson, Iain F
(1902-? ) Scottish solicitor and travel author of the 1930s whose sf novel, Cypher 8 (1939), is a Near Future thriller involving a Ray Gun of sorts. [JC]
McKinley, Robin
(1952- ) US-born author, in UK for many years, married to Peter Dickinson from 1992 until his death, with whom she has written the Elementals fantasy sequence. For most of her early career she concentrated on fantasy, beginning with what may remain her most famous single tale, Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978), an early and influential Revisionist Fantasy [for that entry, for Robin ...
Gamma Quadrilogy
A quartet of mid-1960s sf films directed by Antonio Margheriti credited as Anthony Dawson, comprising I Criminali della Galassia (1965; vt The Wild, Wild Planet), I Diafanoidi Vengono la Morte (1966; vt War of the Planets), Il Pianeta Errante (1966; vt War Between the Planets) and La ...
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 ...