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Sunday 19 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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Corman, Roger
(1926-2024) US film-maker, a number of whose films are sf. Born in Los Angeles, he graduated in engineering from Stanford University in 1947, and spent a period in the US Navy and a term at Oxford University before going to Hollywood, where he began to write screenplays; his first sale was Highway Dragnet (1954), a picture he coproduced. He soon formed his own company and launched his spectacularly low-budget career. From 1956 he was regularly associated with ...
King Kong
1. Film (1933). RKO. Directed by Merian C Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack. Written by James A Creelman, Ruth Rose, from a story by Cooper, with credit also given to Edgar Wallace. Special effects designed and supervised by Willis H O'Brien. Cast includes Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot and Fay Wray. 100 minutes. Black and white. / The classic ...
Lawrence, James
(1773-1840) UK utopian thinker and author, mostly resident in the Continent, who had for several years been expounding the proto-Feminist arguments of his Utopia, The Empire of the Nairs: Or, the Rights of Women: An Utopian Romance in Twelve Books (1811 4vols), beginning with an essay (German title not known) on "The Nair System of Gallantry and Inheritance" (1793 Deutsche Merkur). A version of the novel (considerably ...
Williams, Carol Lynch
(1959- ) US author of some interest for the Just in Time series of very Young Adult Time Travel tales beginning with The Rescue Begins in Delaware (2013), all with Cheri Pray Earl; the two child protagonists travel back and forth in a Time Machine coveted by a Villain, and meet various historical figures, including Thomas Alva ...
Pearson, Martin
Pseudonym used by Donald A Wollheim for over twenty solo stories including the Ajax Calkins series and "Mimic" (December 1942 Astonishing Stories), the latter filmed as Mimic (1997) directed by Guillermo Del Toro. There is one collaborative Pearson title, "The Embassy" (March 1942 Astounding), which Wollheim ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...