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Friday 17 January 2025
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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Star Ocean
Videogame series (from 1996). tri-Ace. / Star Ocean is a series of Japanese Console Role Playing Games (see Computer Role Playing Games), set in a universe heavily influenced by Star Trek. In addition to the sf elements, a form of alchemical magic often makes an appearance, variously referred to as symbology, heraldry and runology. While this suggests that the ...
Ramsden, Lewis
Pseudonym of A L Dowling (? -? ), UK author of The Temple of Fire (1905), a Lost Race tale whose contemporary protagonists are directed to a mysterious Island in the South Atlantic by a "Strange Letter Found in a Copper Vessel" from Elizabethan times, and find there a civilization descended from ancient Persia; an even more ancient civilization, having suffered racial ...
Czech and Slovak SF
In Czechoslovakia there are two main groups, the Czechs and the Slovaks, speaking different languages. Sf is written in both. / The history of Czech sf begins in the nineteenth century, with the first true sf work probably being Zivot na Měsíci ["Life on the Moon"] (1881) by Karel Pleskač. Also of interest are some of the works of the famous mainstream author Svatopluk Čech; for example, Hanuman (1884; trans W W Strickland 1894), ...
Alarcón y Ariza, Pedro Antonio de
(1833-1891) Spanish author, initially famous for travel writings, though now know mainly as the author of El sombrero de tres picos (1874; trans anon as The Three-Cornered Hat 1891), a novella based on a traditional ballad which became famous after Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) composed a ballet in 1919 based on the tale. Alarcón is of some sf interest for his early novel, "El amigo de la muerte" (1852 El eco de occidente; trans Mrs Francis J A Darr as ...
May, Karl
(1842-1912) German author, much of whose output consisted of Westerns conceived under the clear influence of James Fenimore Cooper; the most famous of these is the Winnetou sequence, featuring the eponymous Native American (as noble as many Germans) and the white man, Old Shatterhand (a projection of the author), the central story being told in Winnetou, der rote Gentleman ...
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 ...