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Monday 9 December 2024
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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Atlantis
The legend of Atlantis, an advanced civilization on a continent (or large Island) in the middle of the Atlantic which was overwhelmed by some geological cataclysm, has its earliest extant source in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias (circa 350 BCE). The legend can be seen as a parable of the Fall of Man, and writers who have since embroidered the story have generally shown less interest in the cataclysm itself than ...
Paul, Frank R
(1884-1963) American artist, born in Austria. He studied art in Vienna and Paris before moving to London to obtain additional training in architecture, which later became one of his professions, as he designed several buildings in New York City while also earning money by illustrating textbooks. After emigrating to New York in 1906, Paul initially drew political cartoons for a newspaper before meeting fellow immigrant Hugo Gernsback, who hired him to do ...
Déjà Vu
Film (2006). Touchstone Pictures (see The Walt Disney Company) and Jerry Bruckheimer Films present a Scott Free production. Directed by Tony Scott. Written by Bill Marsilii, Terry Rossio. Cast includes Jim Caviezel, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton and Denzel Washington. 126 minutes. Colour. / In this Time-Travel action film, a federal agent (Washington) investigates the bombing of a ferry in New Orleans. He is ...
Zagat, Arthur Leo
(1896-1949) US author, extremely prolific in a number of Pulp-magazine genres, publishing about 500 stories, some (excruciatingly) as by Morgan Lafay; of the relatively few that are sf, several were with Nat Schachner, including Zagat's first, "The Tower of Evil" for Wonder Stories Quarterly in Summer 1930. The eleven tales produced collaboratively before they separated in 1931 were Zagat's ...
Pidgin, Charles Felton
(1844-1923) US statistician and author of an early Alternate History novel, The Climax: Or, What Might Have Been: A Romance of the Great Republic (1902), the Jonbar Point of which being a different outcome to the fatal 1804 duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. In this world, not having killed Hamilton, Burr conquers Mexico and Central America, becomes President of the United States in 1808, and soon ...
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. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star (1966-1967), and later in ...