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Saturday 4 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 29 June 2026
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Osondu, E C
(? - ) Nigerian author, in US from around 2005, most of his work being short fiction, and mostly nonfantastic. He is of sf interest for Alien Stories (coll 2021), where tales of Aliens, sometimes engaged in First Contact, resonate with the issues of colonialism and racism (see Afrofuturism, Imperialism; ...
Cowen, Laurence
(1865-1942) UK scriptwriter, playwright, film and theatre director and author born Laurence Cohen, who also wrote as by Lesser Columbus. His "Wake Up!": A Dream of To-morrow (3 January-26 February 1915 Daily Express; 1915) is a Near Future Invasion tale which avoids direct reference to World War One by giving the invading nation the imaginary name of Vaevictia; before its ...
Lindsey, Johanna
(1952-2019) German-born US author of romance novels, mostly with historical settings, which regularly appeared on the New York Times bestseller list; the first was Captive Bride (1977) [not listed below]. Lindsey is of sf interest for the Ly-San-Ter trilogy opening with Warrior's Woman (1990), whose tough yet virginal female protagonist goes on an interstellar quest (with a wisecracking AI sidekick) to free her world's women from ...
Tower Comics
The Comics imprint of Tower Books, active from 1965 to 1969, originally edited by Wally Wood. Wood found himself unable to handle the workload alone and brought in veteran comics writer Samm Schwartz (1920-1997) to help with all titles except his own. Wood had been promised a great deal of creative control and a large budget for the line, which included teen titles, war comics, and Superhero titles. It ...
Page, Geoff
(1940- ) Australian poet, translator and author of Winter Vision (1989), a Near Future Dystopia set in Australia. [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 ...