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Friday 22 September 2023
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.
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Berserkers
Term introduced by Fred Saberhagen for the implacably life-hating machines of his extensive Berserker series, which began with the short story "Fortress Ship" (January 1963 If; vt "Without a Thought" in Berserker, coll of linked stories 1967). These normally manifest as massive AI-controlled Spaceships with the capability to erase life from entire worlds; they ...
Cosmos
1. Fanzine. See Fantasy Review. / 2. Australian popular science magazine, in the style of Omni, which publishes one, sometimes two sf stories per issue. Founded by Wilson da Silva, who is the editor-in-chief, it is published by Luna Media, Chippendale, New South Wales; the fiction editor was Damien Broderick from the first issue to December 2010/January 2011, and thereafter Cat ...
van Dongen
Working name of American artist Henry Richard van Dongen (1920-2010), at times also credited as H R van Dongen. He received extensive artistic training at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Woodbury Ross School of Painting before going to work as an artist, initially specializing in advertising and retouching photographs. He entered the sf field with the cover of the September 1950 issue of Super Science Stories, but he quickly became a ...
D.A.R.Y.L.
Film (1985). World Film Services/Columbia. Directed by Simon Wincer. Written by David Ambrose, Allan Scott, Jeffrey Ellis. Cast includes Mary Beth Hurt, Michael McKean, Barret Oliver, Josef Sommer and Kathryn Walker. 100 minutes. Colour. / D.A.R.Y.L. is a Data Analysing Robot Youth Lifeform but, when "he" (Oliver) wakes up Amnesiac in the woods, he thinks he is just a small boy, Daryl. Adopted by a pleasant family, he learns not ...
Goldsmith, Howard
(1943- ) US research psychologist and author, mostly for younger readers, whose fiction includes The Whispering Sea (1976); The Shadow, and Other Strange Tales (coll 1977 chap) and Terror by Night, and Other Strange Tales (coll 1977), both was designed for "reluctant readers"; and Invasion: 2200 A.D. (1979). With Roger Elwood he produced the anthology ...
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, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its listing of Pseudonyms. ...