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Thursday 6 February 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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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Berry, Jedediah
(1977- ) US editor and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Inheritance" in The Fairy Tale Review for 2007, and although his work is not generally thought of as sf, his first novel, The Manual of Detection (2009), imparts very considerable Equipoisal energy to the story of Charles Unwin, a detective whose investigations into his predecessor's apparent triumphs gradually unpack a deeply insecure world. ...
Swain, John D
(? -? ) Prolific US Pulp author active 1901-1939, chiefly with short crime/thriller tales; he began to publish work of genre interest with "L'Enfant Terrible" in The Cavalier for 4 May 1912. His "The Last Man on Earth" (November 1923 Munsey's Magazine) – in which the Last Man is the last adult male in a world of women ...
Flying Serpent, The
Film (1946; vt Killer with Wings). Producer's Releasing Corporation. Directed by Sam Newfield (credited as Sherman Scott). Produced by Sigmund Neufeld. Written by John T Neville from his original story. Cast includes Eddie Acuff, Hope Kramer, Ralph Lewis, James Metcalfe and George Zucco. 59 minutes. Black and white. / Demented archaeologist Professor Andrew Forbes (Zucco) has made two unlikely discoveries near San Juan, New Mexico. The first is that the Aztec Empire stretched ...
Donnelly, H Grattan
(1850-1931) Irish-born playwright and author, in US from early manhood; he wrote three sf novels: The Coming Crown (1880 chap), a Satire on tendencies he detected for the American presidency to become a form of monarchy in the Near Future; '84, a Political Revelation (1883 chap), which predicts further postbellum turmoils; and The Stricken Nation (1890 chap), depicting a ...
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 ...