SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 28 November 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.
Site updated on 27 November 2023
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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 ...
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Animated film (2001). Walt Disney Animation Studios (see The Walt Disney Company). Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Written by Tab Murphy and David Reynolds based on a story by Murphy, Trousdale, Wise, Bryce Zabel and Jackie Zabel. Cast includes Michael J Fox and Cree Summer. 96 minutes. Colour. / It took 64 years and 41 films for Disney to produce their first arguably ...
Tyssot de Patot, Simon
(1655-1738) UK-born French teacher and author who lived most of his life in The Netherlands, at least initially to escape persecution, his family being Huguenots. His career as an author of Proto SF Fantastic Voyages began late in his life, with the publication of Voyages et Avantures de Jaques Massé ["Voyages and Adventures of Jacques Massé"] (dated 1710 but circa 1714; trans Stephen Whatley ...
Lesson, The
Armenia animated film (1987). Armenfilm. Directed and written by Robert Sahakyants. 17 minutes. Colour. / The first passenger-carrying starship (see Spaceships) lands on a planet whose flora and fauna mostly resemble portmanteaus of Earth species (see Life on Other Worlds). The trigger-happy tourists begin hunting them, only to find the dead ...
Gilchrist, John
Pseudonym of UK author Jerome Gardner (1932- ), author of five novels, each mildly Dystopian, for Robert Hale Limited: Birdbrain (1975), set in a Soviet-occupied Britain; Out North (1975), in which the prospect of travel to the Moon attracts would-be astronauts; Lifeline (1976), whose venue is a now Russia-dominated United States of ...
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 ...