SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 10 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: The Telluride Institute
Duel
Made-for-tv film (1971). ABC/Universal. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Richard Matheson, based on his original story "Duel" (April 1971 Playboy). Cast includes Eddie Firestone, Charles Steel and Dennis Weaver. 75 minutes; expanded and released outside the USA as a feature film, 90 minutes. Colour. / Universal Studios were so impressed by this television film directed by ...
Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers
Board and counter Wargame (1976). Avalon Hill. Designed by Randall Reed. / Starship Troopers is a simulation of the fictional reality depicted in Robert A Heinlein's 1959 Military SF novel of the same name. Its gameplay concentrates on what has perhaps proved to be the most influential feature of the book, despite its enthusiastic political evangelism: infantry combat between ...
They Came from Outer Space
US tv series (1990-1991). The Finnegan-Pinnchuk Company/MCA Television Entertainment. Syndicated. Created by Tom McLoughlin. Produced by Patricia Finnegan, Sheldon Pinnchuk and Loretta Taub. Directors included Chuck Bowman, Sidney Hayers and Jefferson Kibbee. Writers included Peter I Baloff, McLoughlin and Dave Wollerts. Cast includes Dean Cameron, Christopher Carroll, Stuart Fratkin and Alan Royal. Twenty 42-minute to 45-minute episodes. Colour. / Twin teenage brothers Bo (Cameron) ...
Greider, George Michael
(1944- ) US author of Forever Man (1995), whose Technothriller elements are soon swamped in speculative forays into territories metaphysical and secular, and by a plot which focuses on a Pariah Elite of Immortals, and upon the deaths they cause. [JC]
Brown, Zachary
Pseudonym of unidentified US author (? - ) who under this name is of sf interest for their Icarus Corps sequence of Military SF tales comprising The Darkside War (2015), Titan's Fall (2016) and Jupiter Rising (2017 ebook). The action, in which grunts suffer and triumphalism is muted, takes place in a Solar System whose human inhabitants are ...
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 ...