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Saturday 12 October 2024
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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Coover, Robert
(1932-2024) US author who established a considerable reputation with his novels, in which Fabulation and political scatology mix fruitfully. His work could be seen to represent a Postmodernist intensification of the same milieu excoriated by Richard Condon; at times both authors seem to be describing a nightmare dream of orgy-choked life in the Late Roman Empire (see ...
Styx
US rock band formed in Chicago in 1972, who achieved considerable success in the 1970s and early 1980s. Their sf concept album Kilroy Was Here (1983) introduced a more synth-led sound, and produced two hit singles in "Mr. Roboto" and "Don't Let It End"; but the songs are weak and overly theatrical. The story was a response to Christian anti-rock activists: The MMM (Majority for Musical Morality) has outlawed rock music, but the imprisoned singer Robert Orin Charles Kilroy (or ...
Fisher, Philip M, Jr
(1891-1973) US teacher, naval officer, author and financial auditor (in that order), whose work was restricted primarily to the Pulp magazines. His earliest sale was an article in Youth's Companion in 1916; his first fiction sale, and also his first work of sf, was "The Demise of Professor Manried" for All-Story Weekly, 18 August 1917. Here the eponymous professor is able to use electricity to amplify and harness thought ...
Hearne, Kevin
(1970- ) US author almost all of whose work has been fantasy and supernatural fiction, like the extensive Iron Druid Chronicles beginning with Hounded (2011), which features the sometimes picaresque adventures of a Shapeshifting next-to-Immortal druid in Arizona; Vampires and Nordic deities complicate his life. The Oberon's Meaty Mysteries sequence ...
Space Precinct
UK tv series (1994-1995). A Mentorn Films and Gerry Anderson Production. Directors include John Glen, Sidney Havers and Alan Birkinshaw. First episode written by Paul Mayhew-Archer. Cast includes Simone Bendix, Ted Shackleford and Rob Youngblood. Current. First episode October 1994; 24 one-hour episodes. / This syndicated series is apparently based on a singleton drama from some years back entitled Space Police, but the title was changed so as not to infringe the title ...
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 ...