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Friday 8 December 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.
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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
Odgers, Sally
(1957- ) Australian author, who has also written as by Sally Farrell, Tiffany Mandrake and Sally Farrell Odgers; most of her work has been for younger readers and/or fantasy, such as the long Jack Russell, Dog Detective sequence beginning with The Lying Postman (2005 chap) with Darrell Odgers, or the variously shared volumes of the Out of this World sequence beginning with Slime World (2007 chap) [none are listed below]. The ...
Anderson, Jon
Working name of John Roy Anderson (1944- ), British musician best known as the lead singer of the band Yes. Anderson's solo albums return frequently to sf subjects. His first solo release, Olias of Sunhillow (1976) is a concept-album telling the story of an alien race's escape from planetary apocalypse in a spacecraft called "Moorglade" piloted by the titular character. The album combines Moog synthesizer and Anderson's soprano ...
Galaxy Quest
Film (1999). DreamWorks Pictures, Gran Via Productions. Directed by Dean Parisot. Written by Robert Gordon and David Howard. Cast includes Tim Allen, Enrico Colantoni, Daryl Mitchell, Alan Rickman, Sam Rockwell, Tony Shalhoub and Sigourney Weaver. 102 minutes. Colour. / There is no point in Galaxy Quest where it can be forgotten that the film is an affectionate, mildly Satirical Parody of the first ...
Mitchell, Kirk
(1950- ) US author and former police officer who began writing sf with the Procurator Alternate-History trilogy – Procurator (1984), New Barbarians (1986) and Cry Republic (1989) – based on the premise that Rome did not fall and that the world of 2000 CE reflects a mixture of Roman modes and richly conceived technologies; A D Anno Domini (1985), which is ...
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 consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and sf ...