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Thursday 19 June 2025
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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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Suprynowicz, Vin
(circa 1950- ) US Libertarian columnist and author whose sf novel, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Resistance (2005), seems written mainly to advocate his Politics views. Near Future America is dominated by a surveillance-obsessed authoritarian government which exercises much of its authority through militarized police units known as the Homeland Security ...
Hallen, A L
(? -? ) UK author whose Angilin: A Venite King (1907) is among several novels by early writers that prefigure the Planetary Romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs, though without the flair. The planet in question is Venus; the protagonist is an Earthman who transports his psyche there in an attempt to find his dead love, and finds himself ...
Wise, Arthur
(1923-1983) UK drama consultant and author, most of whose works were thrillers; he also wrote as by John McArthur and under the non-sf house name Bryan Swift. Most of his sf was borderline, using genre elements to heighten the suspense. The best known of these tales was probably The Day the Queen Flew to Scotland for the Grouse Shooting (1968), about the abduction of the monarch in the context of a breakup of the United Kingdom. A second ...
Rutman, Leo
(1935- ) US playwright and author. Spear of Destiny (1988) is an occult fantasy set in the Spanish Civil War, about the spear that pierced Christ's side, and which may remain magically potent. Of sf interest is Clash of Eagles (1990), a Hitler Wins tale set some years after its Jonbar Point, the surrender of Great Britain in 1941. America has been ...
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 ...