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Friday 2 June 2023
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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Machinima
Term used to describe films produced by recording the output from a Videogame as it is being played. This approach can produce visuals comparable in quality with those created by conventional computer animation techniques for considerably less effort, though clearly the choice of subject matter is affected by the nature of the game being used. Early examples of the form were created by players of Quake (1996) by adding (generally ...
Didelot, Francis
Working name of Madagascar-born French author and screenwriter Roger-Francis Didelot (1902-1985), who wrote numerous detective novels, some as by José Bernard. He began to publish work of sf interest with La Machine à prédire la mort ["The Death Prediction Machine"] (October 1938-January 1939 Ric et Rac; 1939) with Charles Robert-Dumas (1875-1946), whose titular Machine can accurately foretell the time of death (see ...
Batman
This Comic-book crimefighter, the archetypal masked avenger (though influenced by earlier such figures, notably The Shadow), nicknamed "The Caped Crusader" and "The Dark Knight", has become a twentieth-century Icon. He is not a Superhero in the strictest sense, since he is represented as having no superhuman abilities; however, his near-impossible strength, stamina and athletic ...
Funnell, Augustine
(1952- ) Canadian author whose two sf novels, Brandyjack (1976) and its sequel, Rebels of Merka (1976) – the only titles published by Laser Books actually to have been written by a Canadian – were, as required by that firm, unremarkable Space Operas. In the 1980s Funnell began to publish short fiction in US magazines, remaining active into the early 1990s. [JC]
Claretie, Jules
(1840-1913) French theatre director, drama critic and author, prolific as novelist and playwright; of sf interest is L'Obsession (Moi et l'Autre) (1908; trans Brian Stableford as Obsession 2013), whose protagonist's Identity is split in two, the divided personalities distinct along lines most vividly demarcated in Robert Louis Stevenson's ...
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 ...