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Wednesday 18 June 2025
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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. ...
Shannon, John C
(? -? ) UK author of some sf interest for "The Dream of Jacques, the Anarchist" (7 April 1894 Walsall Advertiser as by Nemo), a Future War vision involving advanced Airships and other newly developed Weapons. The tale was collected, along with some fantasies and weird fiction, in Who Shall Condemn? and Other Stories (coll 1894). Shannon's second ...
Space Command
Juvenile tv series (1953-1954). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for CBC TV. Produced and directed by Murray Chercover. Writers included Alfred Harris (see Harris Moore). Cast includes Andrew Anthony, Robert Barclay, James Doohan and Austin Willis. Uncertain number of 30-minute episodes. Black and white. / This all but forgotten series featured the adventures of the titular organization, based on ...
Kashiwaba Sachiko
(1953- ) Japanese author, largely of fantasy fiction for children and Young Adults, beginning with Kiri no Mukō no Fushigi-na Machi (1975; trans Christopher Holmes as The Marvelous Village Veiled in Mist 1987), in which the titular Brigadoon-like Polder [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], where local ...
Asakura Hisashi
Pseudonym of Zenji Ōtani (1930-2010), the Japanese translator of, among others, J G Ballard, Michael Crichton, Philip K Dick, Harry Harrison and Fritz Leiber. Graduating in Anglo-American studies from Osaka University, he initially worked in a textile company until 1966. A prolific translator for S-F Magazine, he ...
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 ...