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Sunday 9 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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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Ralston, Gilbert
(1912-1999) Northern Ireland-born screenwriter and author, in America for many years, who may have sometimes written as by Stephen Gilbert (see Stephen Gilbert for discussion of the resulting confusion). It was, however, under his own name that Ralston wrote the screenplay for Willard (1971), the film of the 1968 novel by the "real" Stephen Gilbert, and for the sequel, Ben (script 1971; novelization 1972); in the 1970s he ...
Oakes, Philip
(1928-2005) UK journalist and author of an Apes as Human tale, Experiment at Proto (1973; vt The Proto Papers 1974); his long experience with Zoos, including the long-running Television documentary series, Zoo Time (1956-1968) in collaboration with Desmond Morris, is reflected in the book's claustrophobic venue. [JC] ...
Robertson, Al
(? - ) UK musician and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Golden" in The Third Alternative for Spring 2004; his first novel Crashing Heaven (2015), which begins the Station series, is a Space Opera with Cyberpunk intonations, set in a period after Earth has been abandoned due to the behaviour of ...
Amazing Engine
Role Playing Game (1993). Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). Designed by David Cook. / One of a range of generic role playing systems intended to compete with GURPS (1986), Amazing Engine had a simple set of core rules, with more detailed setting specific mechanics included in the various worldbooks. The system allowed players to transform a character designed for one setting into an analogous persona ...
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 ...