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Monday 13 January 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Rhinehart, Luke
Pseudonym of US teacher and author George Powers Cockcroft (1932-2020), best known for his Dice Man books, a sequence beginning with his first novel, The Dice Man (1971; rev 1983); publicity for the novel wrongly described its author as a psychiatrist. The tale, whose protagonist is named Luke Rhinehart, dramatizes a philosophy of chance – with life decisions made according to a throw of the dice – which, given dramatic fictional form, leads to what might ...
Bien, H M
(1831-1895) German-born rabbi and author, in the US from an early age; his book of poems, Oriental Legends and Other Poems (coll 1883), contains some fantasy content. Of sf interest is Ben-Beor: A Story of the Anti-Messiah. In Two Divisions (1891; vt Ben-Beor: A Historical Story. In Two Divisions 1892), the first division of which involves a journey to the Moon by Elijah in a fiery chariot, the second of which engages with a ...
Holt, Tom
(1961- ) UK author – a solicitor before he turned to full-time writing in 1995 – whose debut was the precocious "Poems by Tom Holt" (coll 1973 chap). He is best known for his numerous comic fantasies, beginning with the genially myth-based Expecting Someone Taller (1987) and Who's Afraid of Beowulf? (1988) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. ...
Donson, Cyril
(1919-1986) UK journalist and author, at one period of his life a schoolmaster at the Royal Naval School, Tal Handaq, Malta. The generic nature of his first story – "Mouse Into Man" in Titbits Magazine in 1940 – has not been established. He claimed to have published more than 6000 pieces, fiction and nonfiction, under various names including Lonny Cordis, Russ Kidd, Via Hartford and Anita Mackin. His known sf is, however, restricted to three routine adventures for ...
Rimel, Duane W
(1915-1996) US poet and author of some short fiction, some of it with H P Lovecraft; his sf novel, Time Swap (1969) as by Rex Weldon, combines Time Travel and Sex. [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 reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...