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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. ...
Bigfoot
Film (1970; vt Big Foot). Ellman Film Enterprises. Produced by Anthony Cardoza. Directed by Robert F Slatzer. Written by Slatzer from an original story by Slatzer and James Gordon White. Cast includes John Carradine, Lindsay Crosby, Judy Jordan, Joi Lansing, Christopher Mitchum and John Mitchum. 84 minutes. Colour. / Near a small town in northern California, Rick (Christopher Mitchum) and his girlfriend Chris (Jordan) briefly encounter a ...
Alexander, Patrick
(1926-1997) UK author of crime novels; of these Show Me a Hero (1979) – a Near Future thriller set in a Dystopian UK governed (as was common in 1970s novels of this description) by a left-wing dictatorship – is of some sf interest. [JC]
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Film (1972). Apjac/Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by J Lee Thompson. Written by Paul Dehn, based on characters created by Pierre Boulle. Cast includes Roddy McDowall, Don Murray, Hari Rhodes and Natalie Trundy. 86 minutes. Colour. / This was the fourth in the ever-weakening series of films beginning in 1968 with Planet of the Apes. Caesar (McDowall), the ape born in ...
Scheer, K-H
(1928-1991) German author, active from 1948. He published prolifically – including much sf – in the circulating-library format in which many pulp adventures appeared in postwar Germany; none of this material has been translated. However, translations of his novellas in the weekly Dime-Novel SF format of Perry Rhodan (which see for any details), the enormously ...
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 ...