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Friday 20 June 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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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Wonder Woman
Dark-haired US Comic-book Superhero – the first female example of major and lasting importance (but see Miss Fury for discussion of earlier candidates). Dressed in star-spangled blue shorts and a low-cut, strapless red top with a gold eagle motif, red high-heeled boots and a gold tiara, she also wears gold, bullet-deflecting bracelets which, if chained together by a man, become "bracelets of ...
Rein, Harold
(1926-2011) US author of an extremely grim Post-Holocaust novel, Few Were Left (1955), whose suicidal protagonist is trapped with others Underground, in the New York subway system, after the bomb has dropped. He fails, after several adventures, to escape. A Television version for Armchair Theatre broadcast 30 November 1958 as "Underground", was set ...
Abominable Snowman, The
Film (1957; vt The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas US). Hammer Film Productions/Warner Brothers (UK)/20th Century Fox (US). Produced by Aubrey Baring. Directed by Val Guest. Written by Nigel Kneale, adapted from his BBC teleplay The Creature (30 January 1955). Makeup by Phil Leakey. Cast includes Michael Brill, Robert Brown, Peter Cushing, Arnold Marlé, Wolfe Morris, Maureen O'Connell and Forest Tucker. 91 minutes, cut to ...
Sullivan, Philip A
(1882-? ) US lawyer and author of a Utopia, Man Finds the Way (1939), in which the power of Religion, through the founding of the United States of the World, leads to universal peace. [JC]
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 ...