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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. ...
Dirac, Hugh
(? - ) UK medical doctor and author of an sf novel, The Profit of Doom (1970), in which a surgeon (see Medicine) implants brain cells from a foetus into the body of a diseased millionaire, who then gains Immortality. [JC]
Nagpal, Veena
(1942- ) Indian author of Adventure in Space; And, the Time Travellers (coll 1967 India), in which Space Opera and Time Travel conventions are adapted, perhaps not vigorously enough, to her native venue. [JC]
Coombs, Charles I
(1914-1994) US author, usually known as Chick Coombs, who in 1941 modelled John Carter of Mars for John Coleman Burroughs's Sunday-newspaper comics strip of that name (see Edgar Rice Burroughs). Coombs's written output was almost exclusively of nonfiction books for Young Adult readers, a high proportion of them about flying. Of sf interest are at least two tales, ...
Zindell, David
(1952- ) US author with a degree in mathematics who began publishing sf with "The Dreamer's Sleep" for Fantasy Book in December 1984. His career properly began, however, when he won the Writers of the Future Contest with "Shanidar" (in L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, anth 1985, ed Algis Budrys), which was modified into the first ...
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 ...