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French Bedsheet-size, glossy colour Comic-strip sf magazine launched January 1975 by Bernard Farkas, Jean-Pierre Dionnet (1947- ) and illustrators Jean Giraud and Philippe Druillet; published by Les Humanöids Associées. Conceived as a high-quality showcase for the growing number of French sf artists, Métal Hurlant was an instant success, combining many aspects of sf narrative with particular stress on the erotic, the grotesque and the horrific in illustrated form. Although it was accused of putting emphasis on graphics rather than content, its influence was notable throughout Europe and North America, and translations of its contents appeared in similar magazines in the USA (in particular...
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Term used in this encyclopedia for the now frequent sf trope in which entry is made into someone's personal dreams or mental landscape (as though this Inner Space were a physical geography) to study or influence the contents. This has long been imagined as an intriguing technique of future Psychology. A pioneering sf example is Peter Phillips's "Dreams are Sacred" (September 1948 Astounding), in which the mental link is provided by a glorified electroencephalograph and the hard-headed protagonist must extract his patient – a fantasy author – from deranged retreat into real-seeming versions of his own stories. John Brunner's more sophisticated "City of the Tiger" (1958 Science Fantasy #32; in...
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Pseudonym of Polish biophysics Hubert Harańczyk (1954- ), who as an author entered the Genre SF field with "Wrocieeś Sneogg, wiedziaam . . ." (September 1987 Fantastyka; trans Michael Kandel as "Yoo Retoont, Sneogg. Ay Noo" – see Checklist), which won that magazine's second short story competition. It is an intense and existentially frightening meditation on the nature of humanity in a post-apocalyptic world, whose main characters are deformed Mutants tested to qualify as "real humans"; those who do not satisfactorily score become donors, "raw material" for transplants. His "Kara większa" (July 1991 Fantastyka; trans Wiesiek Powaga as "The Greater Punishment" – see Checklist) won the Janu...
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(1928-1980) UK Television scriptwriter and editor who as the first story editor of Doctor Who oversaw the writing of this series' first 51 episodes (1963-1964) and contributed several scripts of his own in the mid- to late 1960s. Whitaker wrote the first Doctor Who novelization, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (1964; vt Doctor Who and the Daleks 1973). This well-crafted narrative was closely based on Terry Nation's script for the first Daleks storyline, broadcast as The Mutants (1963-1964) and later generally known as The Daleks; though Whitaker was given as sole author on the title page, copyright was shared with Nation. Another Tie followed, Doctor Who and the Crusaders...
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