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Thursday 12 March 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.
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Orczy, Baroness
Working name of Hungarian-born illustrator and author Baroness Emmuska Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy (1865-1947), in the UK from about 1880, though much of her time was spent in France; her first given name was also rendered as Emma, which she did not like. After magazine work as an illustrator, she came to fame with The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), first performed as a play in 1903 and followed by eleven Scarlet Pimpernel sequels. Her sf novel, ...
Paton, John
Pseudonym of UK author Frederick John Alford Bateman (1921-2004), whose unremarkable Space Operas for Robert Hale Limited comprise Leap to the Galactic Core (1978), Proteus (1978) and The Sea of Rings (1979). [JC]
Altman, Robert
(1925-2006) US Cinema director, producer and screenwriter perhaps best known for directing the films M*A*S*H (1970) and Nashville (1975). His first film of clear genre interest is Countdown (1967), a Space-Flight thriller anticipating NASA's 1969 landing on the Moon. This was followed by the more fantastical movies ...
Emanuel, Walter
(1869-1915) UK solicitor and author mostly active around the turn of the century in the short-lived English humour magazine, The Butterfly, the first of whose Dog books was A Dog Day or The Angel in the House (1902), a diary kept by a dog. Of some sf interest is One Hundred Years Hence: Being Some Extracts from the Hourly Mail of A.D. 2000 (1911 chap), which comprises a spoof newspaper by means of which mild aspersions are cast on ...
Austin, Mary
(1868-1934) US critic, poet, playwright and author of fiction and nonfiction, including studies of the natural world of the American South-West like The Land of Little Rain (1903), and Taos Pueblo (graph 1930) with photographs by Ansel Adams (1902-1984). Her involvement with Native American life and arts was intensified by Feminist arguments that women were similarly oppressed (see Race in SF; ...
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...