SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 25 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.
Site updated on 24 January 2022
Sponsor of the day: Joe Haldeman
Samurai Jack
US animated tv series (2001-2004; 2017). Cartoon Network (2001-2004); Williams Street (2017). Creator and executive producer: Genndy Tartakovsky. Writers include Bryan Andrews and Genndy Tartakovsky. Directors include Robert Alvarez, Randy Myers and Genndy Tartakovsky. Voice cast includes Greg Baldwin, Phil LaMarr, Mako and Tara Strong. 62 episodes of approximately 23 minutes. Colour. / The first episode begins as if this were a feudal fantasy: the demon Aku (Mako 2001-2004, Baldwin 2017) ...
Parmele, Mary Platt
(1843-1911) US popular historian and author of Ariel; Or, the Author's World (1898 chap), whose narrator – taking advantage of unexplained Psi Powers – creates a planetoid which circles Earth at a distance of 400,000 miles, apparently in geosynchronous orbit (see Scientific Errors), and which is inhabited by the Frankenstein Monster and other creatures also generated by the author's divine afflatus. [JC]
Explorers
Film (1985). Edward S Feldman/Paramount. Directed by Joe Dante. Written by Eric Luke. Cast includes Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix and Jason Presson. 109 minutes. Colour. / Three schoolboys (Hawke, Phoenix, Presson), tipped off by a dream, employ a Computer to help create a sphere that can move very quickly and is impervious to Gravity; they use it to power a Spaceship they build out of junk. Far above Earth they find another spacecraft with, inside it, two Aliens – their view of humanity ...
Sullivan, Sheila
(1927- ) Malaysian-born editor and author, in the UK from an early age, her critical nonfiction usually written as Sheila Bathurst. Her sf novel Summer Rising (1975; vt The Calling of Bara 1976) depicts a Post-Holocaust trek across a peaceful Ireland. [JC]
People, The
US made-for-tv film (1972). American Zoetrope Productions/Metromedia Producers Corporation for ABC-TV. Produced by Gerald I Isenberg. Directed by John Korda. Written by James M Miller based on selected stories from Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (fixup 1961) and The People: No Different Flesh (coll of linked stories 1966) by Zenna Henderson. Cast includes Kim Darby, Dan O'Herlihy (Sol Diemus), William Shatner, Diane Varsi and Laurie Walters (Karen Diemus). 74 minutes. Colour. / Young ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for November 1966, where much of his earlier criticism also appeared. This criticism, despite some studiously ...