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Wednesday 11 September 2024
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 9 September 2024
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Richards, Joel
Pseudonym of US author Joel Richard Fruchtman (1937- ), who began publishing sf with "Speedplay" for Amazing in 1980 and has published subsequent stories in original anthologies. In his sf novel, Pindharee (1986), an officer in a human-dominated Galactic Empire must decide whether or not to disobey orders and fail to exterminate a peaceful Alien civilization. [JC]
Van der Graaf Generator
UK prog-rock band comprising Peter Hammill, Hugh Robert Banton (1949- ) and Guy Evans (1947- ). Highly regarded in the narrow world of English prog, the group released a series of musically soursweet and ornately complex albums whose obscure lyrics trace out fantastical versions of ordinary life that shade, often, into a more structured fabulation. The first album, The Aerosol Grey Machine (1969), ...
Townsend, Sue
(1946-2014) UK author best known for the nonfantastic Adrian Mole sequence [not listed below]; of sf interest is the Satirical Queen sequence beginning with The Queen and I (1992) [see Checklist for theatrical versions], set in a Near Future republican Britain where the royal family, relocated into a council estate, must learn to cope with real life. The ex-Queen (all characters retain their historical names) ...
Zombicide
Board Game (2012). Guillotine Games. / Zombicide is a turn-based cooperative board game in which 1-6 players must survive a series of Zombie Disaster scenarios. Players take the role of an individual character with their own special powers and must survive a series of deadly turn-based attacks by zombies. The atmosphere of the game is intended to generate a B-movie ambience, with ...
Game Design
While the practice of game design has no direct relationship to sf, a brief section on the subject has been included here to define and clarify concepts used elsewhere. / Although new Games have been created throughout recorded history, the first attempts at a theory of game design do not seem to have emerged until the early 1970s, among board and counter Wargame developers. The term "game designer" itself, referring to the profession of ...
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 ...