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Friday 17 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 ...
Chronopolis
French/Polish animated film (1982). Production du Cirque, Acteurs Auteurs Associés (AAA), Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA). Directed and written by Piotr Kamler. Music by Luc Ferrari. Colour. / First shown at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, this film exists in two forms: a 67-minute version released in the US in 1983 with narration by Michael Lonsdale and a co-writing credit for Gabrielle Althen (this presumably ...
Wheeler, Harvey
(1918-2004) US author, co-author with Eugene L Burdick (whom see for details) of Fail-Safe (13-27 October 1962 Saturday Evening Post; 1962), a novel filmed as Fail Safe (1964). [JC]
Psycho-Pass
Japanese animated tv series (2012-2013). Production I.G. Directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro and Naoyoshi Shiotani. Written by Makoto Fukami and Gen Urobuchi. Voice cast includes Kana Hanazawa, Kenji Nojima, Takahiro Sakurai and Tomokazu Seki. 22 23-minute episodes. Colour. / Twenty-second-century Japan is stable, prosperous and has created the "greatest happiness for the greatest number of people" (see Utopia). This is done through ...
Computers
The computer revolution transformed the real world so rapidly that sf had to struggle hard to keep up with actual developments. Although Charles Babbage's attempts to develop a mechanical computer have lately attracted attention in such Steampunk novels as The Difference Engine (1990) by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, they failed to inspire ...
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 ...