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Sunday 13 July 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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Chepaitis, B A
(1957- ) US author whose Jaguar Addams sequence beginning with The Fear Principle (1998), a Space Opera set initially on a Prison satellite where the protagonist Jaguar Addams uses her Telepathic powers in attempts to cure inmates, some of whom are psychotic, some obsessed by Religion. Later volumes of the sequence, some set back on ...
Century
US Small Press literary magazine of science fiction and fantasy, published by Century Publishing, Madison, Wisconsin; a joint enterprise, for the first four issues, between publisher Meg Hamel and editor Robert Killheffer. The first issue appeared in March/April 1995, though there was a slim "preview" issue some months earlier. It was printed in review format (see Magazines), with artistic covers and nothing ...
Island of the Lost
Made-for-tv film (1967; vt Dangerous Island). Ivan Tors Productions for ABC-TV. Produced by Ivan Tors. Directed by John Florea. Written by Richard Carlson from an original story by Carlson and Tors. Cast includes Jose De Vega, Richard Greene, Luke Halpin, Robin Mattson and Sheila Welles. 92 minutes. Colour. / Anthropologist Josh MacRae (Greene) rashly takes his family – two daughters (Welles, Mattson) and a son (Halpin) – plus a couple of research assistants on an ...
Ka-Zar
US Pulp Magazine. Three issues, October 1936, January 1937 and June 1937, published by Manvis Publications; edited anonymously by Charles Goodman. Each issue featured a "complete novel" about the title character plus non-genre short adventure fiction; the last issue was titled Ka-Zar the Great. / Ka-Zar begins as a small boy, the sole survivor of a plane crash in Africa that kills his parents. He is raised by lions and becomes a ...
Immortality
Immortality is one of the basic motifs of speculative thought; the elixir of life and the fountain of youth are hypothetical goals of classic intellectual and exploratory quests. What is usually involved is, strictly speaking, extreme longevity and freedom from ageing, if not actual Rejuvenation – the uselessness of the former without the latter is reflected in the myth of Tithonus and in Jonathan Swift's account of the ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...