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Wednesday 18 June 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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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
VGA Planets
Videogame (1992). Designed by Tim Wissemann. Platforms: DOS, Win. / VGA Planets is a turn-based 4X Game of galactic domination displayed on a two-dimensional map, broadly similar to its near contemporary Master of Orion (1993). ("VGA" refers to a type of graphics hardware; its use in early versions made the game more visually appealing than some of its competitors.) After ...
Miller, George
(1945- ) Australian film-maker (his Greek parents changed their name from Miliotis soon after his birth). After a satirical short film, A History of Violence in the Cinema, Part One (1975), Miller made an international impact with Mad Max (1979), a Near-Future cop/vigilante car-chase movie that introduced Mel Gibson to stardom as a leather-clad highway patrolman in an anarchic ...
Prometheus
Film (2012). Twentieth Century Fox in association with Dune Entertainment presents a Scott Free/Brandywine production. Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. Cast includes Idris Elba, Michael Fassbender, Logan Marshall-Green, Guy Pearce, Noomi Rapace, Ralph Spall and Charlize Theron. 124 minutes. Colour. / In 2093, the ship Prometheus includes archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace) and Charlie Holloway ...
Stickgold, Bob
(1945- ) US neurobiologist, psychiatrist specializing in sleep research and author, who began publishing work of genre interest with "Susie's Reality" in the UK edition of Worlds of If (see If) for May-June 1973. His first sf novel, Gloryhits (1978) with Mark Noble, deals with a Disaster following upon research in recombinant DNA, a government-funded ...
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 ...