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Wednesday 15 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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Midwinter
Videogame (1989). Maelstrom Games (MG). Designed by Mike Singleton. Platforms: AtariST (1989); Amiga, DOS (1990). / Midwinter is an unusual combination of real time Computer Role Playing Game and Computer Wargame, set on an isolated island in the aftermath of a devastating meteorite strike which has plunged ...
Leon, Mark
(? - ) US author of the Mind-Surfer sequence of Near Future tales – comprising Mind-Surfer (1995), The Gaia War (1995) and The Unified Field (1996) – in the second of which the manufacture of a fully-powered goddess called Gaia brings about a threat of change leading to Disaster in the year 2000, a threat that ...
Hinde, Thomas
Pseudonym of UK author Thomas Willes Chitty (1926-2014), whose career as a novelist extends from 1952, when he was not very plausibly associated with the "Angry Young Men" (more a journalistic invention than a literary movement) which included Kingsley Amis and Colin Wilson. Ninety Double Martinis (1963), understandable as Fantastika though not explicitly, anatomizes an extremely ...
Wachowski, Lana
(1965- ) US filmmaker known until 2008 as Laurence (Larry) Wachowski, who regularly works in partnership with younger sister Lilly (formerly Andy) Wachowski (1967- ). The team came to attention in the early 1990s with their coarsely satirical Horror script Carnivore; this was not filmed, but landed them the writing of action flop Assassins (1995), on the back of which they pitched producer Joel ...
Royal, Matthew J
(1863-1900) Canadian teacher and author of The Isle of the Virgins: A Romance (1899; cut vt The Unknown Island; Or, The Isle of the Virgins 1905), a Lost Race Utopia set on an Island where women – descended from ancient Romans – dominate; men are allowed to mate only within the framework of a game (see Games and Sports) run by their ...
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 ...