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Wednesday 16 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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Salvatore, R A
(1959- ) US author, almost exclusively of Fantasy, and a specialist in the Forgotten Realms fantasy universe, for which he has written many Ties (his pure fantasy is not listed below). The Chronicles of Ynis Aielle sequence, opening with Echoes of the Fourth Magic (1990) is essentially fantasy but set on a future Post-Holocaust Earth where ...
On the Beach
1. BBC Radio dramatization by Mike Walker in the Classic Serial anthology programme, as On the Beach (1957). / 2. Film (1959). Lomitas Productions/United Artists. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Written by John Paxton, based on On the Beach (1957) by Nevil Shute. Cast includes Fred Astaire, Guy Doleman, Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck and Anthony Perkins. 134 minutes. Black and white. / ...
Kepler, Johannes
(1571-1630) German astronomer, one-time assistant to Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) and later imperial mathematician and astrologer to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II. Kepler's contribution to Astronomy – most notably his three laws of planetary motion – provided vital groundwork for Newton's cosmological synthesis. In 1593 he prepared a dissertation on the heliocentric theory, which explained how events in the heavens would be ...
Synecdoche, New York
Film (2008). Likely Story/Projective Testing Service/Russia/Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. Cast includes Hope Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samantha Morton, Tom Noonan, Emily Watson, Diane Wiest and Michelle Williams. 124 minutes. Colour. / A theatre director in Schenectady, who finds his life accelerating (see Time Distortion) as his ...
Zeddies, Ann Tonsor
(1951- ) US author whose Deathgift sequence covers considerable ground in its two volumes. Deathgift (1989), though not technically a Pocket-Universe tale, embodies a fundamental rhythm of constriction and release through the story of a young boy abandoned to the Native-American-like tribes that mediate among the medieval cities which surround them, and who only later is subject to a ...
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 ...