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Sunday 22 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. ...
Mind Game
Japanese animated film (2004). Based on the Manga by Robin Nishi. Studio 4°C. Directed and written by Masaaki Yuasa. Voice cast includes Takashi Fujii, Koji Imada, Sayaka Maeda and Seiko Takuma. 103 minutes. Colour. / After an opening fast-cut montage, set to ominous music, of events surrounding the life of 20 year old aspiring manga artist Nishi (Imada), we see him running into his old school ...
Mason, Daniel
(1976- ) US doctor and author who remains best known for his first novel, The Piano Tuner (2002), an ostensibly nonfantastic tale which follows the eponymous expert into the heart of 1886 Burma, where a chthonic myth-fomenting physician's piano must be tuned in order for him to bring harmony to conflicting factions. Analogies with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899; 1902) have been noted. Several of the ...
McCartney, Paul
(1942- ) UK singer-songwriter who will forever be best known for being a member of the Beatles, although he has made innumerable recordings as a solo artist for over 50 years. He has displayed an occasional interest in sf in the course of his variegated career, mostly during the first decade. / One song on his album Red Rose Speedway (1973) is provocatively called "Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)" but has no lyrics to explain its title. "Nineteen Hundred ...
Pirates of 1920, The
UK silent film (1911). Cricks & Martin Films. Directed by David Aylott and A E Coleby. Cast unknown. 21 minutes. Black and white. / In the then Near Future of 1920, pirates descend from their Airship on rope ladders, boarding an ocean-going ship and stealing the gold bullion it carries. As they leave, ship's officer Jack Manley grabs the ladder as it is being raised – a fortunate act, as the pirates now drop bombs ...
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 ...