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Thursday 19 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.
Site updated on 16 June 2025
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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. ...
Townsend, Devin
(1972- ) Canadian musician and songwriter, mostly associated with heavy metal, both under his own name and as leader of the band Strapping Young Lad. His entirely solo album Ziltoid the Omniscient (2007) is a concept album about the titular Alien from the planet Ziltoidia 9, "the ultimate fourth dimensional guitar hero", who travels to Earth in search of "your universe's ultimate cup of coffee", then ...
Evans, David
(? - ) US author of whom nothing is known – the name may be a pseudonym – whose Time Station sequence of routine Changewar tales, beginning with Time Station London (1996), pits the Temporal Corps against various threats, in World War Two and elsewhen, against the proper order of history; Alternate Histories flicker in ...
Marsh, Charles L
(1854-1930) US factory clerk (in 1920 census) and author of Opening the Oyster: A Story of Adventure (1889), a Lost Race tale set deep in the mountains of California. [JC]
Year of the Sex Olympics, The
UK tv drama (1968). British Broadcasting Corporation. Directed by Michael Elliott. Written by Nigel Kneale. Cast includes Brian Cox, George Murcell, Suzanne Neve, Martin Potter, Lesley Roach, Leonard Rossiter, Hira Talfrey, Vickery Turner and Tony Vogel. 103 minutes. Black and white (original colour print wiped by BBC). / Long thought lost or irretrievably mutilated, The Year of the Sex Olympics was released in 2020 by the British Film ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...