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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 ...
Countdown
Film (1967). William Conrad Productions. Directed by Robert Altman. Written by Loren Mandel, based on The Pilgrim Project (1964) by Hank Searls. Cast includes James Caan and Robert Duvall. 101 minutes cut to 73 minutes for UK. Colour. / A year later, Countdown would have looked like a Space Documentary, for it concerns the first landing on the ...
Rotsler Award
Annual juried award for life achievement in Fanzine art, named for William (Bill) Rotsler in his capacity as a much-loved and highly prolific fan artist. Presented since 1998, the award is sponsored by SCIFI, the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, and is normally announced at the annual Los Angeles Convention Loscon; it currently comes with a $300 honorarium. / The inaugural ...
Dolinsky, Mike
Working name used by US screenwriter and author Meyer Dolinsky (1923-1984) for his sf novel, Mind One (1972), in which two psychiatrists discover that a Drug meant to treat psychosis actually engenders Telepathy, and find themselves relating warmly to each other (they are of opposite sexes); as one of them is a Jesuit priest, an element of Religion soon enriches the tale. / Active from 1947 ...
Gibbons, Gavin
(1922-1978) UK publisher and author of both nonfiction and fiction; of the latter, By Space Ship to the Moon: A Tale of Adventure in Outer Space for Boys (1958), a Young Adult tale whose modestly familiar contents are hinted at in the full title. Other titles with a sound of sf – like The Coming of the Space Ships (1956) or They Rode in Space Ships (1957) – are in fact UFO books, and ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...