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Friday 17 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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Updike, John
(1932-2009) US author whose carefully polished and opulent style led him more than once beyond the constraints of the mimetic, though he never abandoned his conviction that the narrative conventions of realism necessitously sufficed to describe the world, and he was in this sense a paradigmatic Mainstream Writer of SF; his aversion to genres in literature was conspicuous, as shown in a remarkably obtuse review (20 March 1995 The New Yorker) of ...
Yuasa Masaaki
(1965- ) Japanese director, scriptwriter and animator. Initially employed by Ajia-do Animation Works Inc., he became a freelance animator in 1994, going on to be the animation producer, storyboarder and co-writer for Cat Soup (2001), then writing and directing Mind Game (2004). He subsequently joined the Madhouse studio to work on various ...
Bloundelle-Burton, John
(1850-1917) UK journalist and author, of whose approximately 60 novels – most of them swashbuckling historical romances set mainly at sea – The Desert Ship: A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land (1894) is of sf interest for the Lost Race elements in the tale: the Spanish galleon discovered stranded in the Colorado Desert is loaded with mysterious ritual Aztec objects. [JC]
FLCL
Japanese animated OVA (2000-2001). Gainax / Production I.G / Star Child Recording. Producers: Masatoshi Nishizawa, Hiroki Sato and Masanobu Sato. Writers: Yoji Enokido and Kazuya Tsurumaki. Directors include Kazuya Tsurumaki. Voice cast includes Izumi Kasagi, Jun Mizuki and Mayumi Shintani. Six episodes of approximately 25 minutes. Colour. / Twelve year old Naota Nandaba (Mizuki) lives in the town of Mabase, whose skyline is ...
Ferret
(? - ) Pseudonym of the artist and illustrator Tim MacNamara, sometimes referred to as Tim Ferret. He was a regular contributor to New Pathways and Science Fiction Eye. In collaboration with K W Jeter he reportedly wrote the bulk of Alligator Alley (1989) as by Mink Mole and Dr Adder. In this novel "Mink Mole", the metamorphic protagonist ...
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 ...