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Wednesday 15 January 2025
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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Frankau, Pamela
(1908-1967) UK author who began publishing novels in 1927; daughter of Gilbert Frankau and his first wife Dorothea; known mainly for her work outside the sf field. Frankau's turbulent life was in some aspects interestingly parallel to that of James Tiptree Jr, though she did not disguise her identity. Several of her novels, such as The Bridge (1957), are fantasy; The Offshore Light (1952; ...
Tooker, Richard
(1902-1988) US author and editor who wrote also as Dick Presley Tooker; his first sf story, under that name, was the unsophisticated Planetary Romance "Planet Paradise", written when he was fifteen and revised for Weird Tales (February 1924). He wrote one of the prize-winning essays in the contest launched by Hugo Gernsback, "What Science Fiction Means To Me" (June 1929 ...
Robitaille, Julie
(1949- ) US author of two Ties to Quantum Leap (1989-1993), a Time-Travel Television series. They are Quantum Leap: In the Beginning (1990; vt Quantum Leap: The Beginning 1994) and Quantum Leap: The Ghost and the Gumshoe (1990). [JC]
Friendship's Death
UK film (1987). British Film Institute / Channel 4 / Modelmark. Written and directed by Peter Wollen (1938-2019), based on his story "Friendship's Death" (Spring 1976 Bananas). Cast includes Patrick Bauchau, Ruby Baker, Bill Paterson and Tilda Swinton. 78 minutes. Colour. / In 1970, a female Android named Friendship (Swinton) is sent on a peace mission to Earth, but misses her intended target of MIT, and lands in Jordan during ...
Turner, W J
(1889-1946) Australian-born poet, music critic, playwright and author, in the UK from around 1907, in active service during World War One; he is of some sf interest for his Henry Airbubble sequence, comprising Blow for Balloons: Being the First Hemisphere in the History of Henry Airbubble (1935), Henry Airbubble, in Search of a Circumference to His Breath: Being the Second Hemisphere of the History of Henry Airbubble (1936) ...
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 ...