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Tuesday 18 February 2025
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 17 February 2025
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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Philip, Alex
Working name of Alexander Philip (1882-1968) Scotland-born entrepreneur and author, in US with family from 1884 and in Canada from circa 1900. He is of sf interest for his Lost Race novel, The Painted Cliff (1927), set deep in a valley in the mountains of British Columbia where an ancient white civilization (Philip is condescending to Native Americans) is discovered. [JC]
Arrested Development
Term used in this encyclopedia for the not uncommon scenario whereby humanity's perceived failure to realize its potential – assumed by John W Campbell Jr and others to be boundless – results from externally imposed shackles whose recognition can amply justify Paranoia. Removal of these constraints is likely to trigger a more or less traumatic Conceptual Breakthrough. ...
Super Mario Bros.
Film (1993). Lightmotive/Allied Filmmakers in association with Cinergi Productions and Hollywood Pictures (see The Walt Disney Company). Produced by Jake Eberts and Roland Joffe. Directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel. Written by Parker Bennett & Terry Runte and Ed Solomon based on the concept and characters created by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka of Nintendo. Cast includes Dennis Hopper, Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Samantha ...
Brackett, Leigh
(1915-1978) US scriptwriter and author, for most of her career deeply involved in the writing of fantasy and sf, for which she perhaps remains best known, though her detective novels and her 16 film and television scenarios have been justly praised. Her film work includes screenplays for The Vampire's Ghost (1945) and The Long Goodbye (1973); and for Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep (1946) and Rio Bravo (1958), novelizing her own script as ...
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 ...