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Monday 13 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 13 July 2026
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Nolan, Christopher
(1970- ) Anglo-American filmmaker (with dual citizenship) known for his audacious experiments in film narrative form, as well as for his more conventionally shaped but thematically ambitious work on Warner's revived Batman franchise. A director, producer, and screenwriter, he often works in tandem with his wife Emma Thomas (1971- ), his screenwriter brother Jonathan Nolan (1976- ), the film composer ...
Alexander, Roger
Pseudonym of Jon William Nagel (1942- ), US author of Glimpses (1995), in which the human race, stored in Computer files, plans to send a representative sample of humanity to the stars; but Antichrist (see Religion) intervenes. [JC]
Maynard, Richard
(1926- ) UK-born author, resident in Australia, whose The Coconut Book (1985), about a man stranded on an Island, is of some interest. The Quiet Place (1988; vt The Return 1988) rather overcomplicatedly describes the long hegira of a group of astronauts who, due to time dilation (see Relativity), find a Ruined Earth landscape on their ...
Sullivan, Tricia
(1968- ) US-born author, in UK from 1995, who has also written as by Valery Leith; married during the 1990s (dates unknown) to Todd Wiggins. She began to publish work of genre interest with "Morpheus" in Discoveries (anth 1995) edited by Alan Lothian; most of her work since that point has been in long forms. Her first novel, Lethe (1995), is partly set in the distant Near Future ...
Kalu, Peter
(1962- ) UK translator, rock musician, playwright and author who began his active career with the Moss Side Write workshop for Black writers; the Ambrose Patterson series of Near Future police thrillers – comprising Lick Shot (1993), Professor X (1995) and Yard Dogs (2001) – is set in a noir Manchester. In Lick Shot, racism is being fomented by a white supremacist ...
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 ...