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Sunday 12 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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Wentworth, May
(? -? ) US author, mostly of fairy tales, whose The Golden Dawn and Other Stories (coll 1870), published for children, contains one long tale of possible Feminist interest, "Don Ramon Capello and the Amazon Isle", in which a kind of militant Utopia, inhabited by giant women, is discovered on an unknown Pacific Island. [JC]
Hao Jingfang
(1984- ) Chinese author whose writing displays a poignant Sense of Wonder at the meteoric development that China has seen during her own lifetime (compare to Guo Xiaolu), and a recurring interest in what she herself has termed "the history of inequality". As a child, Hao was inspired to become a scientist by reading the educational magazine Shiwan ge Weishenme ["100,000 ...
Voyage à Travers l'Impossible, Le
Film (1904; vt Whirling the Worlds; vt An Impossible Voyage). Star. Produced and directed by Georges Méliès. 30 minutes. Black and white. / This was only the second sf-oriented film to be more than five minutes long – there had been several of around one minute – made by French cinema pioneer Méliès; the first was his Le Voyage dans la Lune ...
Gall, Chris
(? - ) US illustrator and author, active from around 2004, most of his titles being picture books for younger readers, in an animation-friendly heavily linear style reminiscent of the work of Ron Cobb. While intended for his usual audience, the spoofish Prehistoric SF premise of the Dinotrux series beginning with Dinotrux (2009) – that ...
Chronicles of Riddick, The
Film (2004). Universal Pictures presents a Radar Pictures/One Race Films production. Written and directed by David Twohy. Cast includes Alexa Davalos, Keith David, Judi Dench, Vin Diesel, Colm Feore, Thandie Newton and Karl Urban. Theatrical cut 119 minutes; Director's Cut 135 minutes. Colour. / Five years on from the events of Pitch Black (2000), Riddick is drawn from hiding to combat the Necromongers, an ...
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 ...