Light a master of sci-fi briefly recalled that seems familiar (4,2)
I believe the answer is:
deja vu
'that seems familiar' is the definition.
(sensation that something has happened before)
I can't explain the remainder of the clue.
(Other definitions for deja vu that I've seen before include "Feeling one has seen something before" , "Feeling of repeated experience" , "Illusion of familiarity" , "Imagining one's repeating" , "Experience of sensing something has happened before" .)