SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 22 January 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.
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Lynch, David
(1946-2025) US actor, artist and musician and primarily filmmaker whose work extended Surrealism into mainstream Cinema and Television. Lynch's films tend to examine the uneasy truce between rationality and the unconscious mind by revealing how intimations of Sex, Identity and death make themselves felt in modern American communities. The term Lynchian was defined by David Foster ...
Worlds in Balance
Settings created for sf Games have some unique characteristics not shared with other science-fictional worlds. Most importantly, a gameworld must be balanced, meaning that opposing forces must be of approximately equal capabilities. While this may also be a requirement for an entertaining adventure story, in which the protagonist is engaged in conflict with a reasonable chance of either victory or defeat, games are much more demanding in this regard. Characters in ...
Seven Days
US tv series (1998-2001; vt 7 Days). Paramount Network Television Productions for the UPN network. Created by Christopher and Zachary Crowe. Directors include Charles Correll, David Livingston and John McPherson. Writers include Stephen Beck, Harry Cason and Tim Finch. Cast includes Don Franklin, Jonathan LaPaglia and Justina Vail. 66 45-minute episodes. Colour. / The Backstep Project is a secret National Security Agency Time Travel project ...
Colossus, the Forbin Project
Film (1969; vt The Forbin Project). Universal. Directed by Joseph Sargent. Written by James Bridges, based on Colossus (1966) by D F Jones. Cast includes Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Paul Frees (uncredited) Gordon Pinsent and William Schallert. 100 minutes. Colour. / A supercomputer, Colossus, is designed by Dr Charles Forbin (Braeden) to take control of the US defence network. After being activated and lauded by the President ...
Silvestro, Loui
(? - ) Australian illustrator and author of the Young Adult Henry's Reality Machine (1994), in which Henry, initially ostracized at his new school, wins friends by using his Computer skills to create a Virtual Reality in which to have fun. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...