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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 ...
Matter Duplication
This sf trope is a logical spinoff from the concept of Matter Transmission (which see). A malfunctioning matter transmitter may produce duplicates of the persons or objects transported, as has happened more than once with the Star Trek transporter: there is a duplicate Captain Kirk in the original-series episode "The Enemy Within" (1966) and an evil duplicate Spock in James Blish's ...
Z.P.G.
Film (1971; vt Zero Population Growth UK). Sagittarius/Paramount. Directed by Michael Campus. Written by Max Ehrlich and Frank DeFelitta. Cast includes Oliver Reed, Geraldine Chaplin, Diane Cilento and Don Gordon. 97 minutes. Colour. / Set on a future Earth afflicted by massive Pollution, this film was a product of a period when (perhaps not before time), the question of ...
Aguilera, Juan Miguel
(1960- ) Spanish illustrator, industrial designer by profession, and author. He is considered one of the best Spanish sf writers. He has published thirteen novels, half of them in collaboration with other authors; three novellas in collaboration; and fifteen or so short stories. His works convey like few others the sf Sense of Wonder. / His first story was "Sangrando correctamente" ["Bleeding Correctly"] ...
Tulli, Magdalena
(1955- ) Polish author whose work interfuses mythopoeisis with experimental applications of topoi typical of modern Fantastika. In Sny i kamienie (1995; trans Bill Johnston as Dreams and Stones 2004), a great City self-creates in the heart of the complex culture of a complex continent; W czerwieni (1998; trans Bill Johnston as In Red 2011) follows the "life" ...
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 ...