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Monday 27 June 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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Gentry, Curt
(1931-2014) US author whose Near-Future sf novel, The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California (1968), vividly depicts a San Andreas Fault Disaster, which causes much of California, including Los Angeles, to slide into the sea; some of the book's sidebar Ecological arguments, blaming Man for the destruction of the state, are laboured. [JC]
Wild in the Streets
Film (1968). American International Pictures (AIP). Directed by Barry Shear. Written by Robert Thom from his own story, "The Day It All Happened, Baby!" (original publication not found). Cast includes Hal Holbrook, Christopher Jones, Millie Perkins, Richard Pryor, Diane Varsi and Shelley Winters. 97 minutes. Colour. / Senator Johnny Fergus (Holbrook), a Kennedy-style senator from California, realizes that, through demographic shift, half the population in this very Near Future world is now ...
Barlow, Steve
(? - ) Pseudonym of Steve Lowe, UK author of two Star Wars parodies – Star Bores (1999) and Star Bores: The Prequel (2004 dos) – both with Steve Skidmore. Barlow and Skidmore have collaborated on very many books and scripts for child and Young Adult readers. The Outernet sequence involves Cyberspace derring-do in the galactic Internet of the series title: Outernet: 1: Friend or Foe (2002), Outernet: 2: Control (2002), Outernet: 3: Odyssey ...
Thomas, Donald S
(1934- ) UK historian and author, much of whose early fiction was written as by Francis Selwyn, primarily the Sergeant Verity sequence of nonfantastic historical thrillers [not included in Checklist below]. His Sherlock Holmes sequence of tales beginning with The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes (1997) hovers innocuously at the edge of the fantastic (see Sherlock Holmes). Thomas is of sf interest for Prince Charlie's Bluff (1974), an Alternate History with two initiating ...
Costello, P F
One of the many Ziff-Davis House Names, this appeared on over 40 magazine stories 1941-1958, but until the late 1940s was used exclusively for stories by William P McGivern – indeed it was his personal pen-name until he was called up. It was then sometimes used by Chester S Geier, later by Roger P Graham (Rog Phillips) and probably others still unidentified. "Secret of the Flaming Ring" (March 1951 Fantastic Adventures) and "Space is for Suckers" (June 1958 Amazing) have both been ...
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 ...