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Friday 11 July 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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Finch, Sheila
(1935- ) UK-born author, in the USA from 1957, naturalized in 1965, who began publishing sf with "The Confession of Melakos" for Sou-wester in 1977; some of her early stories appeared as by Sheila Finch-Rayner. Her first novel, Infinity's Web (1985), complicatedly describes the lives of five versions of one protagonist who live in various Alternate Worlds, and who gradually gain a sense of the mutual web they ...
Time Police
There are many fictional sf organizations whose brief is to regulate Time Travel and attempt to nullify dangerous Time Paradoxes or rewritings of history through Changewar. Inevitably the time police also work to guard their own existence. An early story in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, "Delenda Est" (December 1955 F&SF), ...
Hot Gossip
Also known as "Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip". A UK dance troupe, choreographed by Arlene Phillips (1943- ), who appeared on a number of 1970s British television shows. Their 1978 hit single "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper", with Sarah Brightman (1960- ) on lead vocals, was released to cash in on the success of Star Wars (1977). It is a catchy though nonsensical piece of space-disco. [AR]
You Only Live Twice
Film (1967). Eon/United Artists. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Written by Roald Dahl, based very loosely on You Only Live Twice (1964) by Ian Fleming. Cast includes Sean Connery, Mie Hama, Donald Pleasence, Tetsuro Tamba and Akiko Wakabayashi. 116 minutes. Colour. / Several of Fleming's James Bond novels were Technothrillers, mildly sf-oriented (though set in the ...
Vinge, Joan D
(1948- ) US author, with a degree in anthropology from San Diego State University; she has been married twice, to Vernor Vinge 1972-1979 and to Jim Frenkel from 1980. She began publishing sf with Tin Soldier (in Orbit 14, anth 1974, ed Damon Knight; 1990 chap dos), whose theme (like much of her later work) is taken from fairy tale or ...
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 ...