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Thursday 23 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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Franklin, H Bruce
(1934-2024) US critic and academic, a cultural historian in various positions at Stanford University from 1961, in that year giving one of the earliest university courses in sf in the USA. In 1972, despite holding tenure, he was dismissed by Stanford for making speeches allegedly inciting students to riot against the university's involvement in the Vietnam War – a case well known to those interested in questions of academic freedom. He became full professor, again with tenure, at Rutgers ...
Haseley, Dennis
(1950- ) US psychotherapist and author who specialized for many years in picture books, the most ambitious of which – like Ghost Catcher (graph 1989), about a man without a shadow who retrieves people from the brink of death – are of general interest. Typically of this author, Dr Gravity (1992), a Young Adult novel, describes the consequences on others of exceptional individuals, in this case a man ...
Keneally, Thomas
(1935- ) Australian author best known for novels like Bring Larks and Heroes (1967) and Schindler's Ark (1982 UK, vt Schindler's List 1982), which won the Booker Prize and was filmed by Steven Spielberg, but who has several times edged into generic displacements in order to contain and express a remarkably intense and occasionally visionary imagination. His first novel, ...
Phantom Planet, The
Film (1961). Four Crown Productions. Directed by William Marshall. Written by Fred De Gorter, Fred Gebhardt (see Robert A Wise), William Telaak, William Marshall, based on a story by Gebhardt. Cast includes Francis X Bushman, Anthony Dexter, Loretta Faith, Dean Fredericks, Coleen Gray, Richard Kiel and Richard Weber. 82 minutes. Black and white. / Spaceships on routine missions are being destroyed by a mysterious ...
MacHarg, William
(1872-1951) US author, of sf interest for The Achievements of Luther Trant (coll of linked stories 1910) with Edwin Balmer, who was his brother-in-law (see his entry for details). [JC]
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 ...