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Wednesday 19 February 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.
Site updated on 18 February 2025
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Moore, Chris
(1947-2025) Prolific UK artist, known to the public primarily for his hard-edged treatment of Hard SF subjects, although in fact he produced covers in different styles for all sorts of other genres as well, including illustrations of record sleeves for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo and Pentangle. What impressed most about Moore's sf art was not just the photographic realism but the sense of scale, achieved largely through a ...
Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians, The
Japanese animated tv series (2024; original title Mahō Tsukai ni Narenakatta Onna no Ko no Hanashi). J.C. Staff. Directed by Takashi Watanabe and Masato Matsune. Written by Hiroko Kanasugi. Based on the web novel by Yuzuki Akasaka. Voice cast includes Hana Hishikawa, Yui Horie, Hikaru Midorikawa, Mako Morino and Misuzu Yamada. Twelve 24-minute episodes. Colour. / As a child Kurumi Mirai (Hishikawa) is unhappy that she cannot perform ...
Southall, Ivan
(1921-2008) Australian soldier and author, of sf interest for the Simon Black Young Adult sequence, beginning with his first published book, Meet Simon Black (1950; cut 1957), in which Squadron Leader Black leaves the service after World War Two and creates a rocket-powered supersonic VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Land) aircraft (see Inventions); Black improves this vehicle steadily as the series continues ...
Weitz, Chris
(1969- ) US screenwriter, producer, director and author, whose version of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (2007), which he directed and for which he wrote the screenplay, received some criticism for its softening of the author's iconoclastic take on Religion. Weitz is of specific sf interest for his Young World sequence comprising The Young World (2014), ...
Smith, Walter J
(1917-?2011) UK author of two sf novels, The Grand Voyage (1973) and Fourth Gear (1974), for Robert Hale Limited. More interestingly than some contributions to this publisher's sf series, the first tale involves a protagonist who joins the eponymous Voyage via Time Travel, and searches for earlier travellers who have mysteriously disappeared. / Smith apparently adopted the middle name James ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...