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Friday 20 June 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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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. ...
Crane, Nathalia
(1913-1998) US poet, teacher and author, precociously active as a poet from childhood, beginning with the publication of her first collection, The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems (coll 1924 chap), which was much influenced by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886); Time magazine referred to her at this time as "The Baby Browning of Brooklyn". After publishing some further work she enjoyed a long career as an academic and political activist. Samuel R ...
Dr. M
Film (1989). NEF Filmproduktion/Ellepi Film/Cléa Productions. Directed by Claude Chabrol. Written by Sollace Mitchell from a story by Thomas Bauermeister, inspired by Doktor Mabuse, der Spieler (1920; trans Lilian A Clare as Dr. Mabuse, Master of Mystery 1923) by Norbert Jacques (1880-1954). Cast includes Alan Bates, Jennifer Beals, Jan Niklas and Hanns Zischler. 116 minutes. Colour. / Although in clear homage to Fritz ...
Melchior, Ib
(1917-2015) Danish-born actor, screenwriter and director, in the USA since World War Two, whose short story "The Racer" (October 1956 Escapade) – about car-racing as a gorily extreme spectator sport (see Games and Sports) – was adapted for Cinema as the cult classic Death Race 2000 (1975). This was in turn remade as Death Race (2008). Melchior scripted or ...
O'Brien, Willis H
(1886-1962) US special-effects supervisor in the Cinema industry. For his own amusement he early began to experiment with stop-motion photography. A one-minute home movie of an animated caveman and Dinosaur, involving 960 separate exposures, led to the producer and exhibitor Herman Wobber (1880-1965) advancing him $5000 to make a more elaborate version of the same subject: The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy ...
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 ...