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Sunday 13 July 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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World War III Breaks Out
Japanese film (1960). Original title Dai-sanji sekai taisen: Yonjû-ichi jikan no kyôfu; vt The Final War; vt World War III 41 Hours of Fear. Toei Company. Directed by Shigeaki Hidaka. Written by Hisataka Kai, based on a story by Shukan Shincho. Cast includes Michiko Hoshi, Yoshi Kato, Yukiko Nikaido, Yoshiko Mita and Tatsuo Umemiya. 75 minutes. Black and white. / The film opens with slides showing the corpses of babies ...
Offworld
US Semiprozine published by Neil Feigeles of Graphic Image Press, edited by Arnaldo Lopez; two issues, Fall 1993 and Winter 1993/94. Published in slim standard format (10 x 6.7 in; 257 x 170 mm), saddled stapled, it was printed in an edition of 5,000 copies, on quality coated stock with colour artwork throughout its 64 pages. Offworld emerged from the comic-book world (see Comics) rather than a descent via the ...
Quinn, Tory
(? - ) US scientist and author whose first novel, Twilight of the Gods (2021), is fantasy; in the Young Adult Mindborg (2022), the scientist father of a son with epilepsy attempts a surgical procedure to cure him, but fails, while simultaneously awakening Superpowers that arouse inimical attention; for a description of MegaDeath (2022) with Marie ...
Greg, Percy
(1837-1889) UK poet, historian and author, son of the prolific essayist William Rathbone Greg (1809-1881); Greg also wrote as Lionel G Holdreth. His first work of genre interest is "Guy Neville's Ghost" for Blackwood's in March 1865; the nonfiction The Devil's Advocate (1878 2vols) contains some speculative material. His important early sf novel, Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record, Deciphered, Translated and Edited by P G (1880 2vols) (see ...
Meeting, The
Ukrainian animated film (1984; original title Vstrecha). Kievnauchfilm. Directed by Mikhail Titov. Written by V Zayats. 10 minutes. Colour. / Two fishermen joke that a moving light in the sky must be Aliens: they are correct, for it is a spacecraft monitoring the Earth. Realizing they have been noticed, the aliens decide to investigate. Armed with the poisonous substances necessary for conversation – cigarettes and ...
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 ...