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Thursday 5 October 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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Parrinder, Patrick
(1944- ) UK academic and critic, Professor of English at Reading University until his retirement in 2008, whose work in the sf field has focused primarily upon H G Wells. His H.G. Wells (1970) remains an excellent short introduction to the work and the man, though it may now seem unduly dismissive about Wells's later career. H.G. Wells: The Critical Heritage (anth 1972) reflects a similar viewpoint. Parrinder ...
Anet, Claude
Pseudonym of Swiss athlete (he was the premier French tennis player in 1892) and author Jean Schopfer (1868-1931). His sf novel La fin d'un monde (1925; trans Jeffery E Jeffery as The End of a World 1927), which is Prehistoric SF, describes the cultural destruction of an Ice Age people by a more advanced culture. [JC] see also: Origin of Man. /
What We Do in the Shadows
US tv series (2019-current). FXP, Two Canoes Pictures, 343 Incorporated. Created by Jemaine Clement. Based on the 2014 film of the same name (directed and written by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi). Directors include Jemaine Clement, Yana Gorskaya and Kyle Newacheck. Writers include Jemaine Clement, Marika Sawyer and Paul Simms. Voice cast includes Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Harvey Guillén, Doug Jones, Kayvan Novak and Mark Proksch. 30 20-23 minute episodes. Colour. / ...
Wallace, Ian
Pseudonym of John Wallace Pritchard (1912-1998), US clinical psychologist and teacher who spent his working life – from 1934 until his retirement in 1974 – in professional education. As an author he was active mainly after 1967, though under his own name he published some nonfiction in the 1940s and the non-sf Every Crazy Wind (1952). / Beginning with Croyd (1967), Wallace produced a remarkable series of sf novels in two series normally listed under ...
Green, Robert
(?1935- ) Canadian author and musician whose The Great Leap Backward (1968) depicts a future where Computers have taken over the cities, leaving the countryside in a natural state. [JC]
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 ...