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Tuesday 14 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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Zombicide
Board Game (2012). Guillotine Games. / Zombicide is a turn-based cooperative board game in which 1-6 players must survive a series of Zombie Disaster scenarios. Players take the role of an individual character with their own special powers and must survive a series of deadly turn-based attacks by zombies. The atmosphere of the game is intended to generate a B-movie ambience, with ...
Chapman, Edgar L
(1936-2019) US academic and sf critic, with the English Department at Bradley University (Peoria, Illinois) 1963-2002, then professor emeritus at Bradley until his death. His solo works include studies of Philip José Farmer and Robert Silverberg: The Magic Labyrinth of Philip José Farmer (1984 chap) and The Road to Castle Mount: The Science Fiction of Robert Silverberg (1999). ...
Prophecy
Film (1979). Paramount. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Written by David Seltzer. Cast includes Armand Assante, Richard A Dysart, Robert Foxworth and Talia Shire. 102 minutes. Colour. / A mercuric fungicide used by a Maine pulp-mill under the directorship of Bethel Isely (Dysart) has mutagenic effects, bringing Minimata disease and miscarriages to the local Native Americans – who are led by John Hawks ...
Rōjin Z
Animated film (1991 Japan; vt Roujin Z, 1994 UK). Movic, Sony Music Entertainment, The Television, Tokyo Theatres, TV Asahi. Directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo. Written by Katsuhiro Ōtomo. Cast includes Shinsuke Chikaishi, Hikojirō Matsumura, Shinji Ogawa and Chisa Yokoyama. 80 minutes. Colour. / Amid the high expectations engendered by the success of Akira (1988), Katsuhiro Ōtomo restricted ...
Stith, John E
(1947- ) US software engineering manager and author who began to publish sf with "Early Winter" in Fantastic for July 1979. His first novel, Scapescope (1984) – which is Hard SF like all his work – uses his work experience at the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex to extrapolate on the nature of a defense complex in that location two centuries hence. Memory Blank (1986) places a ...
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 ...