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Friday 22 September 2023
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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Italy
To trace an Italian sf tradition is not easy, because of the well-established split in Italy between scientific language and "literary culture". It is of some relevance to read Dante Alighieri's great poem La divina commedia (circa 1304-1320 in manuscript; first printed edition 1472; trans Henry Cary as The Divine Comedy 1814) as a sort of sf journey; Dante used his theological allegory to create a world that in terms of ...
Fayette, John B
(?1850-1927) US author of whom nothing is known beyond his unsigned occultish Fantastic Voyage tale, Voices from Many Hilltops [for full title see Checklist below] (1886), whose protagonist, by the aid of magnetism, visits in reincarnated form various planets of the solar system – including Jupiter and Saturn (see Outer Planets) – whose inhabitants show him around; there ...
Monomolecular Wire
An ultra-strong and ultra-thin monofilament occasionally found in sf and typically consisting of a single, very strongly bonded molecule, though other explanations may be given. Obvious real-world precursors are synthetic fibres such as nylon monofilament; the film The Man in the White Suit (1951) extrapolates from nylon to the nearly uncuttable monofilament used to make the dirt-proof and tear-proof garment of the title. In the same ...
McCowan, Archibald
(? -? ) US author whose first novel of interest is Philip Meyer's Scheme: A Story of Trades Unionism (1892) as by Luke A Hedd [ie "look ahead"]; its protagonist, after writing a pamphlet espousing the Utopian socialism of Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward (1888), takes it on himself to unite the workers in the Near Future real world. By ...
Christopher, Adam
Working name of New Zealand-born author Adam Christopher McGechan (1978- ), in the UK from 2006, who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Devil in Chains, Part One" in Pantechnicon for September 2008, soon followed by "The Devil in Chains, Part Two" (March 2009 Pantechnicon). His first novel, Empire State (2012), is a noir thriller set in a retro Alternate World or ...
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 ...