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Monday 16 March 2026
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.
Site updated on 16 March 2026
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Dietz, William C
(1945-2026) US author who began to publish sf with War World (1986; vt Galactic Bounty 1997), the first volume of his Sam McCade sequence of sf adventures about an interstellar bounty hunter, which continued with Imperial Bounty (1988) and two further titles. The galactic venue of the series exhibits some interesting kinks, and McCade himself gradually gains individuality. Although the angle of approach differs – the protagonist this time ...
Gore, A K Mosha
(? - ) Supposedly Kenyan author who self-published the long narrative Heavens Eye (circa 2000), which is mainly set on the Utopian planet Warth, one of 500 inhabited planets across the universe. People billions years in the future live in an ideal world filled with many advanced Technologies and Inventions. [JO]
Magma
French prog-rock band whose albums elaborate a linked sf narrative about Kobaïa, a planet of spiritually enlightened humans who, having left Earth to form a new Utopian civilization, are now apparently attempting to communicate their wisdom to us. Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh (1973) is characteristic: musically an arresting blend of atonal classical and jazz influences, all tracks are sung in a weird Germanic-sounding invented language. In terms of ...
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Film (1972). Apjac/Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by J Lee Thompson. Written by Paul Dehn, based on characters created by Pierre Boulle. Cast includes Roddy McDowall, Don Murray, Hari Rhodes and Natalie Trundy. 86 minutes. Colour. / This was the fourth in the ever-weakening series of films beginning in 1968 with Planet of the Apes. Caesar (McDowall), the ape born in ...
Nau, John-Antoine
Pseudonym of US-born poet and author Eugène Léon Édouard Torquet (1860-1918), in France from 1866, his life from this point until his death being unusually peripatetic. His only published novel, La Force Ennemie (1903; trans Michael Shreve as Enemy Force 2010), which won the first Prix Goncourt in 1903, is of sf interest. Embedding its central premise in a jungle-jim of imagery from the surreal edge of Fantastika, ...
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 ...