SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 1 April 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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Thomas, D M
(1935-2023) UK poet and author who made use of sf themes most explicitly in such early Poetry as "The Head-Rape" in New Worlds for March 1968 and the two-part "Computer 70: Dreams & Lovepoems" (March-April 1970 New Worlds), a sequence assembled with other poetry of interest in Logan Stone (coll 1970); or the later "S. F." (in The Umbral Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, anth ...
Weller, Archie
(1957- ) Australian author whose second novel, Land of the Golden Clouds (1998), is set in a Ruined Earth Australia three millennia hence, long after a destructive nuclear World War Three; it is built around its varied protagonists' epic journey across the great continent, undergoing experiences typical of the Fantastic Voyage, before they redeem ...
Firestarter
Film (1984). Universal. Directed by Mark L Lester. Written by Stanley Mann, based on Firestarter (1980) by Stephen King. Cast includes Drew Barrymore, Freddie Jones, David Keith, Heather Locklear, George C Scott and Martin Sheen. 114 minutes. Colour. / The novel is not one of King's best, but it hardly deserved this messy adaptation. A young girl, Charlie (Barrymore), has pyrotic powers and can start fires by mental concentration alone. ...
Gojira
Film (1954 Japan; exp with new footage 1956 US; vt Godzilla, King of the Monsters; vt Godzilla). Toho/Embassy. Directed by Ishirō Honda. Written by Takeo Murata, Honda, based on a story by Shigeru Kayama. Cast includes Akihiko Hirata, Raymond Burr (US version), Takashi Shimura and Akira Takarada. 98 minutes cut to 81 minutes for US release. Black and white. / This was the first of a long series of Japanese (see Japan) films featuring ...
Quotations
Sf has long suffered from the perception that its authors are characteristically excellent creators of ideas but clunky prose stylists, suggesting that the genre – and by inference the larger body of texts comprising Fantastika into which sf complexly fits – may not be distinguished by an abundance of well-turned phrases. Still, there are any number of statements by Genre SF writers and others, in stories and articles, that ...
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 ...