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Saturday 22 January 2022
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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Adventure
Term used to describe a form of Videogame in which the gameplay is largely based on the solution of puzzles. Such games are rarely played in real time. Instead, the progress of events in the gameworld will typically be suspended until the player acts, allowing them time to consider their current problem. It is important that the number of potential solutions for each puzzle be limited, so that players are not overwhelmed by the exploration of endless possibilities. As a result, the worlds in ...
Beekman, Doug
Working name of American artist Douglas L Beekman (1952- ). After briefly studying at the Columbus College of Art and Design in his home state of Ohio, he grew dissatisfied with the school and moved to New York City to complete his training at the School of Visual Arts and the Art Students League. He then began painting book covers, mostly for minor publishers; his first noteworthy effort, perhaps, was his cover for a 1977 edition of Philip K Dick's Time Out of Joint ...
Wehrenberg, Charles
(1944- ) US engineer and author, active in the latter capacity from the late 1960s. Most of his work, some of it evocatively flagrant, is nonfantastic, like the exorbitant historical thriller Oda's Web (1995), beginning the Perret series featuring a rampageous spy; though some of the stories assembled as Radio Reactive Apples: Stories (coll 1995) edgily evoke elements of Fantastika. WillBall (1995), is based on a Videogame whose heroine conducts ruthless battles, often ...
Hoyle, Geoffrey
(1941- ) UK author, author of several sf novels with his father, Fred Hoyle (whom see for details). 2010: Living in the Future (1972) is a nonfiction exercise in Futures Studies for children. [JC]
Marriott, H P Fitzgerald
(1865-1939) UK anthropologist and author of The Iron Detective of Germany: A Comedy of the Near Future (1908), set in the Near Future and describing the Invention of a Robot detective capable of Telepathy. [JC]
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 ...