SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 29 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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Lennon, J Robert
(1970- ) US author whose earlier works, though they occasionally imply the fantastic, can be understood in terms of a heated, surreally dense naturalism. In its depiction of a small town transfigured by a domineering entrepreneur, Happyland (cut version July-October 2006 Harper's; 2013 ebook) edges into the Horror inscape of a writer like Jonathan Carroll; Familiar (2012), on the other hand, can be read as a genuine sf novel. Its protagonist, a middle-aged woman trapped ...
Valentine, Genevieve
(1981- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "29 Union Leaders Can't be Wrong" in Strange Horizons for June 2007; most of her work has been fantasy, including her first novel, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti (2011), where acrobats acquire exquisitely light steel skeletons through Magic, set in a world whose Steampunk atmosphere is not argued in Alternate History terms; and The Girls at the Kingfisher Club (2014), a retelling of "The ...
Crawford, Isabell C
(? -? ) Author, possibly Canadian, of The Tapestry of Time (1927), an Atlantis tale which segues through the ill-advised use of atomic energy into the story of the creation of an ill-fated civilization in the Andes (see Lost World), and of another one in Crete, which also ends in tears. [JC]
Woodbury, David O
(1896-1981) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Electric Snare" in Astounding for July 1934, about the Invention of a deadly Ray; in Mr Faraday's Formula: A Dean Riam Suspense Story (1965) enemy agents steal a Gravity-control device. Part of a non-sf series, the book verges on being a Technothriller. [JC]
Battle Angel
Japanese Original Video Animation (OVA) (1993). Original title Gunnm. Based on the Manga by Yukito Kishiro. Madhouse. Directed by Hiroshi Fukutomi. Written by Akinori Endō. Voice cast includes Shigeru Chiba, Miki Itō, Shunsuke Kariya, Mami Koyama and Kappei Yamaguchi. Two 30-minute episodes. Colour. / The aerial City of Zalem dumps its factory waste and other detritus onto the surface below, around which has grown Scrap Iron City. Many its inhabitants are heavily Cyborged, whilst ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...