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Saturday 22 January 2022
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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Yoneda Hitoshi
(1955- ) Japanese artist and illustrator, a drop-out from the Kyoto City University of the Arts who soon found a career in sf Fantasy and game Illustration, in which he gained renown in particular for his images of dragons (see Supernatural Creatures). Notable covers include several works by Yoshiki Tanaka, although Yoneda is much better known through his Games work, including the various iterations of Seiken Densetsu ["Holy Sword Legend"] (1989; vt Secret of Mana, Legend ...
Land, Jon
(1957- ) US author, frequently of Technothrillers that maintain an edgy proximity to full sf, particularly in the Blaine McCracken series beginning with The Omega Command (1984) and ending with Dead Simple (1998), the last being typical in its use of an Invention just beyond current Technology – in this case a new explosive – to effect an apocalyptic but just barely possible Disaster, in this case the destruction of bridges and tunnels connecting Manhattan to ...
Ferret
(? - ) Pseudonym of the artist and illustrator Tim MacNamara, sometimes referred to as Tim Ferret. He was a regular contributor to New Pathways and Science Fiction Eye. In collaboration with K W Jeter he reportedly wrote the bulk of Alligator Alley (1989) as by Mink Mole and Dr Adder. In this novel "Mink Mole", the metamorphic protagonist – part human, part mole, part mink – tells the tale of his hyperbolic trip to Florida, where Dr Adder ...
Donnelly, Lara Elena
(? - ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Witches of Athens" in Strange Horizons for October 2013. Her first novel, Amberlough (2017), is a noir thriller set in an Alternate World whose eponymous capital City, which in some aspects resembles Weimar Berlin, is under threat from the radical right (see Politics). The Decadence of Amberlough culture does not seem threatening, and t he tale is told in a surprisingly jaunty manner. ...
Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
Videogame (1992; vt Dune II: Battle for Arrakis Europe). Westwood Studios (WS). Designed by Joseph Bostic, Aaron Powell. Platforms: DOS (1992); Amiga (1993); MegaDrive (1994). / While it was not the first Computer Wargame to run in real time, Dune II was the first Real Time Strategy game as the form is understood today. Although the game was licenced from Frank Herbert's novel Dune (fixup 1965), it has little in common with its original, and less with the Adventure game Dune (1992 Cryo ...
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. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for November 1966, where much of his earlier criticism also appeared. This criticism, despite some studiously ...