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Sunday 13 July 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the 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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Guirdham, Arthur
(1905-1992) UK physician, psychiatrist and author, usually on topics related to his professional work, though also some speculative works on the occult and the Cathar religion; of sf interest is The Lights Were Going Out (1944), in which a Dystopia succeeds a premature peace that ends World War Two (see Hitler Wins). [JC]
Magic
In the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1884-1928) "magic" is defined as "the pretended art of influencing the course of events ... by processes supposed to owe their efficacy to their power of compelling the intervention of spiritual beings, or of bringing into operation some occult controlling principle of nature". The lexicographer assumed that there is no difficulty in telling a "pretended" art from a real one, nor in distinguishing the "occult" from the ...
Babcock, Margaret A
(? - ) US Episcopal priest and author of several nonfiction books on religious matters [not listed below], and an sf novel, Eden.2 (2021), whose protagonists – a priest and his male exobiologist husband – head the settling of an unexplored planet, which may be inhabited, perhaps in a Gaian manner, by an entity. Their aspirations are high, but a second Starship arrives from ...
Portal
Videogame (1986). Nexa Corporation. Designed by Rob Swigart. Platforms: Amiga, AppleII, AtariST, C64, Mac, PCBoot. / Portal was an attempt to create a "computer novel", a form that was intended to more closely resemble that of hyperfiction (see Hypertext) than that of the text Adventure. The player takes the part of an astronaut sent on a solitary mission ...
Surrogates
Film (2009). Touchstone Pictures (see The Walt Disney Company) presents a Mandeville Films production. Directed by Jonathan Mostow. Written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris from the Comics series The Surrogates (5 issues 2005-2006; graph 2009) by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele. Cast includes James Cromwell, Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis. 89 minutes. Colour. / Surrogates are ...
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 ...