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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 ...
Fire in the Sky
Film (1993). Paramount. Directed by Robert Lieberman, screenplay Tracy Torme based on The Walton Experience by Travis Walton. Cast includes James Garner, Robert Patrick, Craig Sheffer and D B Sweeney. 109 minutes. Colour. / Based on a supposedly nonfictional account of the abduction by Aliens of one member of a six-man forest-clearing team in Arizona, the film concentrates on local suspicions that the other five may have murdered him, and the ...
Melcer, M V
(? - ) Polish-born author, in various countries from childhood, in UK from around 2013, who began to publish work of genre interest with "Ships Made of Guns" in Daily Science Fiction for September 2017. In her first novel, the Space Opera Refractions (2023), a female Starship captain, on a mission to save a colony planet (see ...
Utley, Steve
(1948-2013) US poet (see Poetry) and short-story author whose black verve and acidulous knowingness about the absurdities of the genre made him, for a while, a figure of edgy salience in the field. He began publishing with "The Unkindest Cut of All" for Perry Rhodan #20 in December 1972, but stopped by the end of the decade; stories of interest include "Deviation from a Theme" (May 1976 Galaxy), an ...
Battle Royale
Japanese film (2000). Toei Company presents a GAGA, Kobi Co, MF Pictures, Nippon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippan) K K and WOWOW production in association with AM Associates and Fukasaku-gumi. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Written by Kenta Fukasaku from the novel Battle Royale by Kōshun Takami. Cast includes Masanobu Ando, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Takeshi Kitano, Chiaki Kuriyama, Aki Maeda and Tarō Yamamoto. 114 minutes. Colour. / ...
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 ...