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Friday 22 September 2023
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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Bacon, Francis
(1561-1626) English statesman, philosopher and author who practised as a barrister before embarking on a political career which ended in 1621 with his dismissal, for taking bribes, from the post of Lord High Chancellor of England. Early in life he planned a vast work, The Instauration of the Sciences, a review and encyclopedia of all knowledge, the first inklings of which (and the first use of the term "Instauratio magnus" ["great instauration"]) appeared in the manuscript "Temporis ...
Parenteau, Shirley
(1935- ) US author, mostly of picture books for children, whose sf novel for older children, The Talking Coffins of Cryo-City (1979), a putative Utopia which deals with problems through Weather Control, and with criminals through Cryogenic Suspended Animation (see ...
Clowes, W Laird
(1856-1905) UK author who specialized in naval history, sometimes controversially (usually writing as Nautilus); a nonfiction study, Black America: A Study of the Ex-Slave and his Master (1891), predicts a twentieth-century race war. His work of sf interest is exclusively nautical: The Great Naval War of 1887 (1886 St James Gazette; 1887 chap) with Commander C N Robinson, both anonymous, detailedly depicts a French naval victory in a ...
Muirden, James
(1942- ) UK author, most of whose works are nonfiction popularizing Astronomy; he also published the two-volume Eric Kendall series of Young Adult sf tales comprising Space Intruder (1965) and The Moon-Winners (1965). Young Eric, after halting a rogue planet from striking Earth in the first volume, again must fight the obduracy of the British defense establishment in the ...
Replicant
Film (2001). Millennium Films Inc/Artisan Entertainment/777 Films Corporation. Directed by Ringo Lam. Written by Lawrence David Riggins and Les Weldon. Cast includes Michael Rooker and Jean-Claude Van Damme. 96 minutes. Colour. / A sadistic thriller with sf trappings, Replicant stars Van Damme – a renowned performer in martial-arts films – in a dual role as a woman-loathing serial killer and a "replicant" (see Clones) made from his DNA. ...
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 ...