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Monday 23 May 2022

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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Parker, Joseph W

(? -? ) US author of Doctor Crosby's Strange Experience; Or, a New World by 1944 (1935 chap), in which America becomes a livable Utopia, on socialist principles, in the Near Future. [JC]

(1943- ) US industrial economist and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Great American Economy" for Analog in May 1973, the first of two Council of Economic Advisors tales. Most of his work, both fantasy and sf, has been in the form of series, such as the Timedivers sequence – beginning with his first novel, The Fires of Paratime (1982; vt The Timegod 1992), plus Timediver's Dawn (1992), both assembled as Timegod's World (omni 2000) – ...

Time Police

There are many fictional sf organizations whose brief is to regulate Time Travel and attempt to nullify dangerous Time Paradoxes or rewritings of history through Changewar. Inevitably the time police also work to guard their own existence. An early story in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, "Delenda Est" (December 1955 F&SF), features some soul-searching about the elimination of an alternate – and in several ways attractive – timeline which through no fault of its inhabitants ...

Final Countdown, The

Film (1980). Bryna Company/United Artists. Directed by Don Taylor. Written by David Ambrose, Gerry Davis, Thomas Hunter, Peter Powell, based on a story by Hunter, Powell, Ambrose. Cast includes Kirk Douglas, Charles Durning, James Farentino, Katharine Ross and Martin Sheen. 105 minutes. Colour. / The Nimitz, a (real) aircraft carrier on manoeuvres off Hawaii in 1980, is caught in a strange storm which turns out to be a time-warp (see Timeslip). The vessel is deposited in the same spot in ...

Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction

UK semi-Academic Journal, published by the Science Fiction Foundation of North East London Polytechnic (now known as the University of East London) from March 1972, and more recently, since 1993 when the SFF moved, of the University of Liverpool. Current, nominally three issues a year. #1-#4 edited by Charles Barren, #5-#13 edited by Peter Nicholls, #14-#19 edited by Malcolm Edwards, #20-#36 edited by David Pringle, #37-#83 edited by Edward James, #84-#100 edited by Farah Mendlesohn – the ...

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 ...