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Friday 18 July 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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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Thomas, Frances
(1943- ) UK author most of whose fiction has been for the Young Adult market, usually fantasy, beginning with "In Flanders Fields" in The Fourteenth Armada Ghost Book (anth 1982) edited by Mary Danby. The young protagonist of Cityscape (1988) travels through a portal to a moderately Near Future Dystopia, a world where books are banned, and through her ...
Last Man on Earth, The
US silent film (1924). Fox Film Corporation. Directed by John G Blystone. Written by Donald W Lee. Based on "The Last Man on Earth" (November 1923 Munsey's Magazine) by John D Swain. Cast includes Earle Foxe, Martha Mattox and Derelys Perdue. 70 minutes. Black and white. / Though at least two copies of this film survive and it has occasionally been shown at exhibitions, it is not generally available. The main ...
Eve of Destruction
Film (1991). Orion. Directed by Duncan Gibbons. Written by Gibbons, Yale Udoff. Cast includes Gregory Hines and Renee Soutendijk. 98 minutes. Colour. / Soutendijk is good, both as Eve, a Defense Department scientist, and as Eve VIII, the military Robot that she creates in her own image. Armed with endless firepower and a nuclear bomb, the robot destroys the men Eve secretly hates, several male chauvinists and the police who try to stop her. Some critics ...
Primal Scream
Film (1988; vt Hellfire UK). Manley. Directed by William J Murray. Written by Murray and David di Pietro (uncredited). Cast includes Stephen Caldwell, Sharon Mason, Jon Maurice, Kenneth McGregor, Julie Miller and Joseph White. 89 minutes. Colour. / In 1997 a revolutionary Power Source, the catalytic Element Hellfire, is a controversial issue. Terrorists destroy a Space Station ...
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 ...