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Wednesday 11 March 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 9 March 2026
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Cohn, Norman
(1915-2007) UK linguistic scholar and historian, who remains best-known for his first work of significance, The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957; exp 1961), a seminal study of medieval European millennial sects, which are here definitively anatomized in terms of their belief in an apocalyptic End of the World (see also Eschatology), which is normally signalled and led by Iconic ...
Westward, Elton
House Name for the UK publisher Brown, Watson, several nonfantastic titles under this name being written by John Russell Fearn. Return to Mars (1954) – in which Mars is found abandoned by its native inhabitants, but conspiracies and Monsters breed all the same – was not. [JC]
Phantom, The
African jungle-dwelling Comics Superhero partially inspired by Tarzan and created by Lee Falk – also the creator of Mandrake the Magician – as the star of a daily newspaper strip whose first appearance was on 17 February 1936 and which continues to be widely syndicated today. At the outset the strip was briefly drawn by Falk ...
Grisewood, R Norman
(1876-1923) UK-born author who emigrated to the USA in 1895 and was naturalized in 1921. He wrote two novels of sf interest. In Zarlah the Martian (1909), an instant Communications device allows an Identity Transfer between a Martian and Earthman, both of whom remain happy in their new bodies, though the Earthman – now long-lived, in an advanced society with Antigravity ...
Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic)
Film (1969). Produced, directed and written by David Cronenberg as Emergent Films Ltd. Cast includes Iain Ewing, Clara Mayer, Glenn McCauley, Jack Messinger, Arlene Mlodzik, Ronald Mlodzik and Paul Mulholland. 65 minutes. Black and white. / David Cronenberg's first feature-length film, the director's third following the 16mm shorts Transfer (1966) and ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...