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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. ...
Them!
Film (1954). Warner Bros. Directed by Gordon Douglas. Written by Ted Sherdeman, based on a story by George Worthing Yates. Cast includes James Arness, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon and James Whitmore. 93 minutes. Black and white. / Unexplained deaths are occurring in New Mexico, and are initially treated as a police matter, with State Police trooper Ben Peterson (Whitmore) investigating on the spot with a Red Shirt junior officer; it is some time before we ...
Post-Holocaust
A blanket item of Terminology used in this encyclopedia to deal with stories set in the aftermath of catastrophe, whether the upheaval is a natural Disaster or a human- or Alien-caused Holocaust or an incurable Pandemic. In the longer term, as generations pass and memories of the actual catastrophe fade and blur, post-holocaust settings merge ...
Rucka, Greg
(1969- ) US author who may be best known for his nonfantastic Atticus Kodiak sequence (not listed below), and in his work of genre interest has concentrated on Ties: to the DC Comics universe, with Batman ties beginning with Batman: No Man's Land (1999) and one to Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman: Down to Earth (graph 2004); and ...
Syvertsen, Ryder
(1941-2015) US author specializing in sf and fantasy adventure sequences, the only one to appear under his own name being the Mystic Rebel series beginning with Mystic Rebel (1988) and ending with Cave of the Master (1990). Also under his own name he wrote Psychic Spawn (1987) with Adrian Fletcher (pseudonym of Rosemary Ellen Guiley); and with Jan Stacy he wrote The Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983). ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...