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Friday 20 June 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the 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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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Taylor, Isaac
(1787-1865) UK author, also known as Isaac Taylor of Stanford Rivers, one of several children of Isaac Taylor (1759-1829), an engraver and author with whom his son should not be confused, a task with some difficulty as the younger Isaac Taylor often published anonymously, as did his several siblings (almost all of whom were authors) including Jefferys Taylor; he followed this practice with The Temple of Melekartha (1831 3vols) anonymous, a long ...
Borderlands [game]
Videogame (2009). Gearbox Software (GS). Designed by Matthew Armstrong. Platforms: PS3, Win, XB360 (2009); Mac (2010). / Borderlands is an "action RPG" (see Computer Role Playing Games), much influenced by First Person Shooters but in essence resembling a science-fictional variant of the hack and slash fantasy game Diablo (1997). ...
ab Hugh, Dafydd
(1960- ) US author, born David M Friedman, whose Welsh-sounding name has been legalized. He is perhaps best known for his novella, "The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured his Larinks, a Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk" (August 1990 Asimov's). This is a striking Post-Holocaust tale whose linguistic invention recalls Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker (1980), but which is ...
Maddox, Michelle
Pseudonym of Canadian author Michelle Rouillard (1971- ) for her sf romance Countdown (2008), whose heroine must cope with psychic distress and what seems to be an imprisoning Pocket Universe from which to be rescued. Horror and fantasy novels under her own name are not listed below. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...