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Friday 13 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 ...
Battle beyond the Stars
Film (1980). New World. Executive producer Roger Corman. Director Jimmy T Murakami. Written by John Sayles, based on a story by Sayles, Anne Dyer. Cast includes Sybil Danning, Steve Davis, George Peppard, John Saxon, Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn and Morgan Woodward. 103 minutes. Colour. / New World, never slow to capitalize on a trend, hoped – with partial success – to woo the ...
Wolfe, Louis
(1905-1985) US author in whose Children's SF tale, Journey of the Oceanauts: Across the Bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on Foot (1968), three genetically engineered (see Genetic Engineering) Mutants make the eponymous 4000 mile trek. [JC]
Stone, Leslie F
Pseudonym of US author born Leslie Frances Rubenstein (1905-1991), who for her sf work adapted her writer mother's own pseudonym, Lillian Spellman Stone; in her non-writing life, she took the surname of the journalist William Silberberg, whom she had married in 1927. She began publishing light nonfantastic fiction as early as 1920; her first sf tale, "Men with Wings" for Air Wonder Stories in 1929, describes from an anti- ...
Harris, Richard R
(? - ) US author of The Martian Solution (1997 chap), a short sf novel set on Mars featuring a woman detective. [JC]
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 ...