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Friday 20 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. ...
Laws
Certain "laws", principles or guidelines relevant to sf have become known by their authors' names, and the following examples have separate entries in this encyclopedia: Isaac Asimov's well-known Laws of Robotics, Clarke's Laws of Futures Studies as formulated by Arthur C Clarke, and ...
Adventures of Captain Havoc and the Phantom Knight, The
Australian Comic (?1947-?1949). Number of issues unknown; copies of #1-#6, #8-#10, #12 and #18 are extant in some form. Artists include Matt Baker, Don Ryan and C M Tighe. Writers include Noel P Bookes and John Libris. Issues #1-#2 were titled The Phantom Knight; from #3, The Adventures of Captain Havoc and The Phantom Knight. Some sources have this as a New Zealand comic – and there are copies with a New Zealand ...
Arlen, Michael
(1895-1956) UK-Bulgarian-Armenian author, born Dikran Kouyoumdjian, in the UK from 1901, not allowed to enlist in World War One because of his confused national status; naturalized in 1922 under the name Michael Arlen (which he then took by deed poll). Initially as Dikran Kouyoumdjian, he was active from 1916, writing as Arlen from about 1920. He is mainly remembered for The Green Hat: A Romance for a Few People ...
Watson, Angus
(1972- ) UK author who initially wrote fantasy, primarily the Age of Iron sequence beginning with Age of Iron (2014). He is of some sf interest for his second sequence, the West of East series beginning with You Die When You Die (2017), set in an Alternate World America a millennium ago, where Magic works, though a band of lost Vikings takes refuge. Towards the end of ...
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 ...