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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. ...
Bilderdijk, Willem
(1756-1831) Dutch poet, dramatist, and author of nonfiction on many subjects. His one work of fiction was the novella Kort verhaal van eene aanmerklijke luchtreis, en nieuwe planeetontdekking (1813 chap anon; trans Paul Vincent as A Short Account of a Remarkable Aerial Voyage and Discovery of a New Planet 1987 chap), in which a Balloonist is cast away on a small satellite orbiting within the Earth's atmosphere. Its flora and fauna are ...
Silvis, Randall
(1950- ) US teacher and author, most of whose work is nonfantastic, though he has been identified as a Magic Realist for some of the tales assembled in The Luckiest Man in the World (coll 1984), as well as In a Town Called Mundomuerto (2007) and Flying Fish (2012 chap); the latter two titles both implicate mortals with mythical figures from the sea, in title being odorous with chthonic barings of ...
Tillyard, Aelfrida
(1883-1959) UK religious thinker, medium, activist and author who began publishing as early as 1905, but who first gained attention for editing Cambridge Poets 1910-1913: An Anthology (anth 1913); she published mostly under her own name, though some work was released as by Mrs Constantine Graham. She is now probably best remembered for her two 1930s Scientific Romances (others, written in the 1950s, remain unpublished). Set after a series of ...
Wreck-It Ralph
Animated film (2012). Walt Disney Animation Studios (see The Walt Disney Company). Directed by Rich Moore. Written by Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee, based on a story by Moore, Johnston and Jim Reardon. Cast includes John C Reilly and Sarah Silverman. 108 minutes. Colour. / Thirty years after Tron (1982) took us inside the secret Virtual Reality world of a single ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...