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Monday 9 February 2026
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.
Site updated on 6 February 2026
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Sallis, James
(1944-2026) US musician, poet and author, briefly active in New Worlds during its Michael Moorcock-directed New-Wave phase; he began to publish work of genre interest in this context with "Kazoo" (August 1967 New Worlds) and co-edited the magazine 1968-1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work ...
Rishi, Farah Naz
(? - ) US author whose first novel, I Hope You Get This Message (2019), reinvokes, with some twists, the traditional Young Adult scenario where a young protagonist (or in this case three friends) must somehow persuade a galactic council of homo sapiens's virtues; species extirpation will be the cost of failure. The message NASA receives from the Interplanetary Affairs Committee representing the ...
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Film (1972). Apjac/Twentieth Century Fox. Directed by J Lee Thompson. Written by Paul Dehn, based on characters created by Pierre Boulle. Cast includes Roddy McDowall, Don Murray, Hari Rhodes and Natalie Trundy. 86 minutes. Colour. / This was the fourth in the ever-weakening series of films beginning in 1968 with Planet of the Apes. Caesar (McDowall), the ape born in ...
Walton, David
(1975- ) US physicist and author who has claimed that his Christian faith infuses but does not direct the arguments made in the Hard SF novels he has published to date; he has clearly distinguished between the theological truth of the Bible (for Christians) and the culture-bound language which seems to contradict a modern science, for instance the theory of Evolution. Walton began to publish work of genre interest ...
Mad Max
Film (1979). Mad Max Pty. Directed by George Miller. Written by James McCausland, Miller, based on a story by Miller. Cast includes Tim Burns, Mel Gibson, Hugh Keays-Byrne and Joanne Samuel. 100 minutes, cut to 91 minutes. Colour. / This low-budget exploitation movie builds up to the vigilante-style revenge of spaced-out policeman Max Rockatansky (Gibson) – who is almost as disturbed as his antagonists – on the motorcycle gang that ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...