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Friday 14 August 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 10 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Sorel, Charles
(?1602-1674) French lawyer, secretary to noble houses and author whose large oeuvre contains little that might reflect an inclination toward Proto SF; the 1602 year of birth, often given, would have him publishing multi-volume novels by his late teens, and birth dates in the 1590s have been suggested. Of some interest, however, are three tales which incorporate elements of the Fantastic Voyage, generally with ...
Mackworth, John
(1887-1939) UK soldier, in active service during World War One, and author of The Menace of the Terribore (1936; vt The Raid of the Terribore: A Modern Adventure Story 1937), a Near Future adventure for boys in which an international criminal takes advantage of several Inventions, including a submarine capable of boring Underground through ...
Reed, Clifford C
(1911-? ) South African-born author and civil servant, in UK from 1950, who began publishing sf with "Jean-Gene-Jeanne" in Authentic Science Fiction for November 1954. In Martian Enterprise (fixup 1962) escaped convicts learn slowly how to create a community on a new planet (see Colonization of Other Worlds). [JC]
Collyn, George
Pseudonym used for short sf by UK author Colin Pilkington (1937-2002), whose work mostly appeared in New Worlds, plus one story in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. [DRL] see also: Sun. /
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 ...