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Wednesday 4 October 2023
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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Noyes, Pierrepont B
(1870-1959) US businessman and author whose The Pallid Giant: A Tale of Yesterday and Tomorrow (1927; vt Gentlemen: You Are Mad! 1946) places in an ominous Near-Future context the discovery of records of a long-dead ancient race, which destroyed itself with Death Rays. The last survivors, one of them fortunately a scientist, undertake by Genetic Engineering to set ...
Fifth Element, The
Film (1997). Gaumont. Directed by Luc Besson. Costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Cast includes Maïwenn Besco, Ian Holm, Mila Jovovich, Gary Oldman, Chris Tucker and Bruce Willis. 126 minutes. Colour. / 1914. An archaeologist discovers strange hieroglyphs in a hidden Egyptian tomb. Deciphered, they indicate that the Underground chamber has for almost 5000 years concealed a great ...
Jones, J B
(1810-1866) US author best known for non-fantastic novels like Wild Western Scenes [for subtitle see Checklist] (1841 Baltimore Saturday Visitor; 1841), which did much to establish the literary legend of Daniel Boone (1734-1820), in part through the incorporation of some Tall Tales [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] into the narrative. His sf novel, The Border War: A Tale of Disunion ...
Bed-Sitting Room, The
Film (1969). Oscar Lewenstein/United Artists. Director Richard Lester. Cast includes Peter Cook, Michael Hordern, Roy Kinnear, Arthur Lowe, Spike Milligan, Dudley Moore, Ralph Richardson, Rita Tushingham and Mona Washbourne. Written by John Antrobus from the play by Antrobus and Milligan. 91 minutes. Colour. / The Bed-sitting Room is a Fabulation, a ...
Keith, Andrew
(1958-1999) US Games creator and author, brother of William H Keith Jr, with whom he collaborated on the Freedom's Rangers Military SF sequence, beginning with Freedom's Rangers (1989) and ending with Freedom's Rangers: Snow Kill (1991), both writing together as by Keith William Andrews; in each tale, the Rangers intervene through ...
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 ...