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Friday 2 June 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.
Site updated on 29 May 2023
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Jay, Peter
(1937- ) UK author, economist and former diplomat who served as the UK Ambassador to the USA 1977-1979. His Future History Apocalypse 2000: Economic Breakdown and the Suicide of Democracy (1987) with Michael Stewart, was inefficient as fiction but acute about the pleasures and miseries of late capitalism, which is portrayed as being consumed by debt; the ...
Masters of the Universe
Film (1987). Cannon. Directed by Gary Goddard. Written by David Odell. Cast includes Billy Barty, Meg Foster, Frank Langella and Dolph Lundgren. 106 minutes. Colour. / Goddard's unfortunate film debut announced itself as the first live-action film to be based on Toys – the He-Man toys made by Mattel; its obvious predecessor was an animated Television series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ...
Hellstrom Chronicle, The
US film (1971). Wolper Pictures. Produced by Walton Green. Directed by Green and Ed Spiegel (Hellstrom/insect sequences). Written by David Seltzer. Cast includes Conlan Carter (farmer), Ian McShane (himself), Suzanne Pleshette (herself) and Lawrence Pressman. McShane and Pleshette appear in a film clip from If It's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium (1969). 90 minutes. Colour. / An early docudrama hosted and narrated by the fictional ...
Shadows of Saturn
US Online Magazine and Semiprozine produced by Peter Burtis, Intervale, New Hampshire which ran for just three issues, April/May to August/September 2005. The magazine was dedicated to "dark science fiction, fantasy and slipstream stories with horror elements", according to its now defunct website, and the contents of the three issues certainly emphasized the dark and fantastic. James S Dorr's "City on Fire" (April/May 2005) ...
Landon, Kristin
(1958-2019) US editor and author of the Cold Minds sequence of Space Operas comprising The Hidden Worlds (2007), The Cold Minds (2008) and The Dark Reaches (2009), in which, after the near-destruction of Earth by Cybernetic intelligences, the waif remnants of humanity – piloted to and fro by "jump pilots" – survive on other planets hidden from sight; they prepare to ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. His first professional publication was the long sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" (Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959] Triquarterly), though he only began publishing sf reviews in 1964 and sf proper with "A Man Must Die" in New Worlds for ...