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Friday 14 February 2025
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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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Erpenbeck, Jenny
(1967- ) German opera director and author who is of sf interest for her second novel, Aller Tage Abend (2012; trans Susan Bernofsky as The End of Days 2014) which resembles Kate Atkinson's almost simultaneous Life After Life (2013) in its treatment of the twentieth century as being more than one might ask of any protagonist to live through without dying again and again ...
Venning, Hugh
Pseudonym of Egyptian-born author Claude van Zeller (1905-1984), apparently in the UK from an early age, whose The End: A Projection, Not a Prophecy (1947) envisages, in 2050 CE, a Dystopian (though scientifically advanced) England surrounded by a worse world under the dominion of 666, who rules the Greater Roman Empire and is defeated at the last moment (Venning had become a Benedictine monk in 1934) by the hosts of the Lord. [JC]
Woods, Margaret L
(1856-1945) UK poet and author, of some sf interest for The Invader (1907) a tale involving enforced Identity Transfer; the invading personality eventually destroys the tame protagonist through marriage-destroying wild behaviour. Come Unto These Yellow Sands (1915) is Fantasy. [JC]
4D Man
Film (1959; vt The Evil Force UK; vt Master of Terror US). Fairview/Universal. Coproduced and directed by Irwin Shortess Yeaworth Jr. Written by Theodore Simonson, Cy Chermak, from an idea by Jack H Harris. Cast includes James Congdon, Robert Lansing and Lee Meriwether. 85 minutes. Colour. / A small, interesting film made by the same producer/director team, Jack H Harris and Yeaworth, that had already made The Blob (1958). ...
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 ...