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Tuesday 22 April 2025
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Broderick, Damien
(1944-2025) Australian author, editor and critic; he had a PhD in the semiotics of fiction, science and sf with special reference to the work of Samuel R Delany. He edited four anthologies of Australian sf: The Zeitgeist Machine (anth 1977), Strange Attractors (anth 1985), Matilda at the Speed of Light (anth 1988) and Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction (anth ...
Space Elevator
An increasingly popular item of sf Transportation hardware since its introduction to the genre by the near-simultaneous appearance of Arthur C Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise (1979) and Charles Sheffield's The Web Between the Worlds (1979; exp 1989). The space elevator's basic concept is simply that of a tethered "skyhook" cable – fixed at ...
Otherworld
US tv series (1985). Produced by Universal Television for CBS-TV. Created by Roderick A Taylor. Produced by Lew Hunter. Cast includes Jonathan Banks, Gretchen Corbett, Brandon Crane, Sam Groom, Chris Hebert, Jonna Lee and Tony O'Dell. Eight 48-minute episodes. Colour. / This short-lived series involved the adventures of the Sterling family: father Hal (Groom), mother June (Corbett), their sons Trace (O'Dell) and Smith (Crane in pilot, then Hebert) and their daughter Gina (Lee). While ...
Attack from Space
Japanese/US film (1965). Shintoho. Directed by Teruo Ishii. Written by Ichiro Miyagawa. Cast includes Hiroshi Hayashi and Ken Utsui. 75 minutes. Black and white. / Compiled from episodes 5 and 6 of the Japanese Super Giant film series (see Tokusatsu): The Artificial Satellite and the Destruction of Humanity (1957; 39 minutes; original title ...
Mystery of the Third Planet
Russian animated film (1982; vt The Secret of the Third Planet; vt Alice and the Mystery of the Third Planet). Original title Tayna tretyey planety. Based on the novel Puteshestviye Alisy ["Alice's Travels"] (in Devotchka S Zemli omni 1974; vt Alisa's Travels) by Kir Bulychev. Soyuzmultfilm. Directed by Roman Kachanov. Written by Kir Bulychev. Voice cast includes Vladimir Druzhnikov, Nikolai Grabbe, Olga ...
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 ...