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Friday 29 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.
Site updated on 25 September 2023
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Douglas, Carole Nelson
(1944-2021) US author who began her career as a feature writer 1967-1984 for the St Paul Pioneer Press, and whose first books, like Amberleigh (1980), were historical romances. She is best known for energetic, layered high-fantasy tales like Six of Swords (1982), the first volume in her Kendric and Irissa sequence, which continues with Exiles of the Rynth (1984) and segues into the Sword & Circlet sequence with ...
Brenton, Howard
(1942- ) UK screenwriter and playwright, active from the late 1960s, his dramas often being Satires focused on social, economic and political issues in the UK, frequently conveyed through estranged pantomime routines as evolved from Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), some of whose plays he has adapted for British performance. Singletons of sf interest include ...
Sierra, Javier
Working name of Spanish journalist and author Javier Sierra Albert (1971- ) whose first novel, La dama azul (1998; trans James Graham as The Lady in Blue 2007), presents a conspiracy-drenched rendering of the life of a seventeenth-century nun with the powers of temporal bilocation (see Pseudoscience; Psi Powers; Timeslip) who has appeared to Native ...
Daleks
Sinister and implacable Aliens in the Television series Doctor Who: bent on universal conquest, they are Mutants rendered immobile by radioactivity, inhabiting metal transporters as Cyborgs with built-in Blasters (see Mecha) and manipulators. Their rallying cry, delivered in their ...
Disappearance of Flight 412, The
Made-for-tv film (1974). Cine Films Inc/Cinemobile Productions for NBC-TV. Produced by Gerald L Adler. Directed by Jud Taylor. Written by George E Simpson and Neal R Burger. Cast includes Bradford Dillman, Glenn Ford, Robert F Lyons, Greg Mullavey, Kent Smith, David Soul and Guy Stockwell. Narrator: Herbert Ellis (uncredited). 72 minutes. Black and white/colour. / US Air Force patrol 412, led by Captain Roy Bishop (Soul) and his crew including ...
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 ...