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Saturday 19 April 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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Post-Holocaust
A blanket item of Terminology used in this encyclopedia to deal with stories set in the aftermath of catastrophe, whether the upheaval is a natural Disaster or a human- or Alien-caused Holocaust or an incurable Pandemic. In the longer term, as generations pass and memories of the actual catastrophe fade and blur, post-holocaust settings merge ...
Sorcerers, The
Film (1967). Tigon Film Distributors (UK)/Allied Artists Pictures (US). Produced by Patrick Curtis and Tony Tenser. Directed by Michael Reeves. Written by Reeves and Tom Baker from an idea by John Burke (see Jonathan Burke). Cast includes Boris Karloff, Catherine Lacey and Ian Ogilvy. 86 minutes. Colour. / Former medical hypnotist Professor Marcus Monserrat (Karloff), disgraced by an unexplained incident some years ...
Carver, Jeffrey A
(1949- ) US author who began publishing sf with "... Of No Return" for Fiction Magazine in 1974. His first novel, Seas of Ernathe (1976), which serves as an introduction to his loose Star Rigger sequence of Space Operas, showed early signs of a love of plot and thematic complexity which would take him some time, and several novels, to control. The continuation, Star Rigger's Way (1978), for ...
Lem, Stanisław
(1921-2006) Polish critic, polymath and author, winner of numerous awards including the 1973 Polish State Literary Award. Born in Lwów, he described his childhood and adolescence charmingly (if selectively) in the autobiographical Wysoki zamek ["High Castle"] (1966; trans Michael Kandel as Highcastle: A Remembrance 1995). Lem's study of medicine was interrupted in World War Two by the Nazi ...
Adventures of Dr Fu Manchu, The
US tv series (1956). Studio City Television Productions/Republic Productions, Inc. Directors included Franklin Andreon and William Witney. Writers included Richard H Landau, John K Butler, Ronald Davidson, Barry Shipman. Based on characters created by Sax Rohmer. Cast includes Carla Balenda, John George, Glen Gordon, Clark Howat, Laurette Luez and Lester Matthews. 13 30-minute episodes. Black and white. / Sir Dennis Nayland Smith (Matthews) and his ...
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 ...