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Wednesday 18 June 2025
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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Smith, Russell J
(1972- ) UK author of The Phenomenon (2007), a Near Future sf tale, set in a world already beset by Climate Change, which is afflicted by a "disease" whose victims broadcast their thoughts (see Telepathy) involuntarily. [JC]
Abbott, Edwin A
(1838-1926) UK clergyman, academic and author whose most noted work, published originally as by A Square, is Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884; rev 1884) (see Dimensions). Narrated and illustrated by Mr Square, the novel falls into two parts. The first is a highly entertaining description of the two-dimensional world of Flatland, in which inhabitants' shapes establish their (planar) hierarchical status. ...
VGA Planets
Videogame (1992). Designed by Tim Wissemann. Platforms: DOS, Win. / VGA Planets is a turn-based 4X Game of galactic domination displayed on a two-dimensional map, broadly similar to its near contemporary Master of Orion (1993). ("VGA" refers to a type of graphics hardware; its use in early versions made the game more visually appealing than some of its competitors.) After ...
Jungle Captive
Film (1945; vt The Jungle Captive). Universal Pictures. Directed by Harold Young. Written by Dwight V Babcock and M Coates Webster from a story by Babcock. Cast includes Phil Brown, Jerome Cowan, Rondo Katton, Otto Kruger, Vicky Lane and Amelita Ward. 63 minutes. Black and white. / A sequel to Captive Wild Woman (1943) and Jungle Woman (1944), with no members of the original casts; even 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 ...