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Tuesday 7 May 2024
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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Auster, Paul
(1947-2024) US translator, screenwriter and author, active from around 1970, who came to sudden attention – after years of unrecognized work, culminating in an undemanding Baseball mystery, Squeeze Play (1984) as by Paul Benjamin – with a series of Fabulations playing on detective genres and the French nouveau roman. City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and ...
Attack of the Puppet People
Film (1958; vt Six Inches Tall UK; vt The Fantastic Puppet People). Alta Vista Productions, American International Pictures. Directed and produced by Bert I Gordon. Written by George Worthing Yates from an original idea by Gordon. Cast includes John Agar, John Hoyt, June Kenney (credited as June Kenny) and Jack Kosslyn. 79 minutes. Black and white. / Lonely doll-maker Mr Franzy (Hoyt) ...
First Contact
The most common Communications scenario in sf – often but not always Linguistic in nature – involves the meeting of humans with Aliens. These are generally called first-contact stories, and perhaps the best known of them is "First Contact" (May 1945 Astounding) by Murray Leinster. This poses the problem of contact as a puzzle ...
Alarcón y Ariza, Pedro Antonio de
(1833-1891) Spanish author, initially famous for travel writings, though now know mainly as the author of El sombrero de tres picos (1874; trans anon as The Three-Cornered Hat 1891), a novella based on a traditional ballad which became famous after Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) composed a ballet in 1919 based on the tale. Alarcón is of some sf interest for his early novel, "El amigo de la muerte" (1852 El eco de occidente; trans Mrs Francis J A Darr as ...
Trussoni, Danielle
(1973- ) US journalist, podcaster and author who remains best-known for the Angelology sequence of secret-history Bible-based fantasies beginning with Angelology (2010), featuring an age-long war between a group known as the Angelologists and the "Nephilim", bad angels who have bred with humans. In terms of the tonality of portentousness, the tales hover between the conspiracy novels of Dan Brown and the novels of David ...
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 ...