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Sunday 19 May 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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Corman, Roger
(1926-2024) US film-maker, a number of whose films are sf. Born in Los Angeles, he graduated in engineering from Stanford University in 1947, and spent a period in the US Navy and a term at Oxford University before going to Hollywood, where he began to write screenplays; his first sale was Highway Dragnet (1954), a picture he coproduced. He soon formed his own company and launched his spectacularly low-budget career. From 1956 he was regularly associated with ...
Gattaca
Film (1997). Columbia Pictures presents a Jersey Films production. Written and directed by Andrew Niccol. Cast includes Loren Dean, Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, Uma Thurman and Gore Vidal. 106 minutes. Colour. / In a future where Genetic Engineering allows children to be optimized at conception and Eugenic DNA screening is routine in elite employment, a ...
Hill, Douglas
(1935-2007) Canadian-born author and editor, in the UK from 1959; in 2007 he was run over by a bus. Most of his early books were nonfiction, The Supernatural (1965) with Pat Williams, and Magic and Superstition (1968) being of interest to a genre audience. His involvement in sf and fantasy began through his editing of anthologies like Window on the Future: Science Fiction Stories (anth 1966), Way of the Werewolf: An Anthology of Horror Stories ...
De Sélènes, Pierre
Pseudonym of French author A Bétolaud La Drable (? -? ), which means something like "of the Moon". Un Monde Inconnu: Deux Ans sur la Lune (1896; trans Brian Stableford as An Unknown World: Two Years on the Moon 2014), is an unauthorized sequel (see Sequels by Other Hands) to Jules Verne's ...
Cockroft, W P
(1909-1992) UK author who began publishing work of genre interest with They Came from Mars (28 April 1934 Scoops as "Cataclysm", anon; circa 1945 chap), which with its sequel, "City of Mars" (16 June 1934 Scoops), depicts an Earth prostrated by a Martian plague, the destruction of London, and the eventual accommodation between the two races. [JC] see also: ...
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 ...