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Thursday 19 June 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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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Lord, Karen
(1968- ) Barbados-born author, partly in Canada from late childhood, though she has continued to spend considerable time in Barbados. Her first novel, Redemption in Indigo (2010), is a fantasy Twice-Told from a West African folktale; the novel describes in wryly Feminist terms the attempts of an abandoned husband to restore the status quo; but his powerful wife has been granted by spirit figures a Magic ...
Spanner, E F
(1888-1953) UK naval architect who, after his retirement from the Royal Corps of Naval Construction, was the author of three Future War novels: The Broken Trident (1926), which predicts the use of torpedoes launched by warplanes against vulnerable surface vessels; The Naviators (1926); and The Harbour of Death (1927), where future war battles take place in the Mediterranean. Spanner's recurring message is that the UK ...
Secret of NIMH, The
US animated film (1982). United Artists, Aurora Productions, Don Bluth Productions. Based on the novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971) by Robert C O'Brien. Directed by Don Bluth. Written by Don Bluth, Will Finn, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy. Voice cast includes Hermione Baddeley, John Carradine, Dom DeLuise, Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, Arthur Malet and Paul Shenar. 82 minutes. Colour. / In a society of anthropomorphized ...
Klass, David
(1960- ) US screenwriter and author, son of occasional sf short story writer Morton Klass (1927-2001), nephew of Philip Klass (William Tenn) and brother of Judy Klass, who began publishing short fiction with "Ringtoss" for Seventeen in 1978. Of his fiction, much of which has been written for Young Adult readers, the Caretaker sequence – comprising ...
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 ...