SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 9 July 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 7 July 2026
Sponsor of the day: John Howard
Fox, Mary
(1798-1864) UK author, an illegitimate daughter of King William IV (1765-1837). Richard Whately (1787-1863), the Archbishop of Dublin, may have written part of the Proto SF novel initially attributed mainly to her; but she seems certainly the author of the frame story of Account of an Expedition (Planned and Conducted by Mr H Sibthorpe) to the Interior of New Holland (1837; rev vt ...
Shapiro, Stanley
(1925-1990) US screenwriter – he won an Academy Award for Pillow Talk (1959) – and author. In his sf novel, A Time to Remember (1986), filmed for Television as Running Against Time (1990), a man travels (see Time Travel) back through time to create an Alternate World whose Jonbar Point will be his prevention of ...
Griffiths, David Arthur
(circa 1918-? ) UK author whose obscurity is only marginally lessened by the knowledge that, while working for Curtis Warren, he invited E C Tubb to write his first novels. Under the Pseudonym David Shaw, Griffiths wrote Laboratory "X" (1950), Planet Federation (1950) and Space Men (1951); under the ...
Lowndes, Robert A W
(1916-1998) US author and editor, often referred to as "Doc" Lowndes, a member of the Futurians fan group and collaborator on several stories with other members of the group under the names Arthur Cooke, S D Gottesman, Paul Dennis Lavond and Lawrence Woods. After a spoof article, "Report of the Plutonian Ambassador by Sir Doc Lowndes" (September 1935 ...
Noll, Arthur Howard
(1855-1930) US author of In Quest of Aztec Treasure (1911) with Bourdon Wilson, a Lost World tale set in Mexico; he also wrote A Short History of Mexico (1890), and other studies of that land. [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 ...