SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 10 December 2024
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.
Site updated on 9 December 2024
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Jackson, Basil
(1920- ) Welsh-born author, in Canada from 1948, who specialized in Technothrillers set either at the edge of the present, or in the very Near Future, beginning with Epicenter (1971), where Toronto is threatened by a very bad leak of radioactive material. Rage Under the Arctic (1974) concentrates on a sabotaged nuclear tanker submarine; in The Night Manhattan Burned ...
Shapeshifters
The ability to change shape is an ancient trope of Fantasy, extensively discussed in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. It is a traditional power of various Supernatural Creatures such as Werewolves (invariably) and traditional Vampires; this entry focuses on sf rationalizations of the theme. A defining quality of ...
Berger, Harold L
(1923-2013) US academic and critic, a professor of English at the University of Connecticut at Hartford until his retirement in 1986. His Science Fiction and the New Dark Age (1976) is a study of Dystopian sf, taking in Genre SF as well as such Mainstream Writers of SF as Aldous Huxley and Michael Young. The ...
Crimes of the Future
Film (1970). Emergent Films. Produced, directed, written and photographed David Cronenberg. Cast includes Jon Lidolt, Jack Messinger, Ronald Mlodzik and Tania Zolty. 70 minutes. Colour. / This cheaply made, inventive Canadian film, something between an underground and a commercial movie, is chiefly of interest as ushering in – along with Stereo (1969) – Cronenberg's distinguished, eccentric and ...
Korg: 70,000 BC
Juvenile tv series (1974). Hanna-Barbera Productions for ABC-TV. Created by Fred Freiberger. Produced by Freiberger and Richard L O'Connell. Directors include Irving J Moore, Christian Nyby. Writers included Freiberger and Ian Martin. Cast includes Eileen Dietz, Bob Ewing, Jim Malinda, Christopher Mann, Naomi Pollack and Jenny Pransky. Narrator: Burgess Meredith. Sixteen 30-minute episodes. Colour. / This ...
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 ...