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Tuesday 1 September 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the 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.
Site updated on 31 August 2026
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Murray, Will
Working name of US author William Patrick Murray (1953-2026), who showed an interest throughout his career in Superheroes of the Pulp tradition (on which he was a known authority) such as Doc Savage, about which figure he wrote the nonfiction Secrets of Doc Savage (1981 chap). In this context he had been literary agent for Lester Dent's estate since 1979. ...
Flanagan, Richard
(1961- ) Australian author whose third novel, Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish (2001) describes early Australian history – specifically the deeply troubled culture of Tasmania – in terms at points reminiscent of the Magic Realism techniques used by Latin American writers in their manufacture of national myths of origin; the tale is a central example of what has come to ...
Gore, A K Mosha
(? - ) Supposedly Kenyan author who self-published the long narrative Heavens Eye (circa 2000), which is mainly set on the Utopian planet Warth, one of 500 inhabited planets across the universe. People billions years in the future live in an ideal world filled with many advanced Technologies and Inventions. [JO]
Townsend, J D
(? - ) US musician, journalist and author whose sf novel, The Assassin's Dream (2005). describe a distant Near Future Dystopian world run on bureaucratic lines by females (see Women in SF) in the absence of most males due to a genetic syndrome that has killed most of them off. The story involves the discovery by a government assassin of truths ...
Stacpoole, William Henry
(1846-1914) UK lawyer and author, elder brother of H De Vere Stacpoole. In his sf novel, Herr Richter's Strange Experiment (1888), the eponymous Scientist applies his Invention – an Identity Exchange device – to the solution of a murder mystery involving identical twins. "The Teleporon" (March 1886 Longman's Magazine) ...
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 ...