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Wednesday 22 March 2023
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.
Site updated on 22 March 2023
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
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 ...
Emms, William
(1930-1993) UK teacher and occasional television scriptwriter responsible (among other work) for "Galaxy Four", a four-part Doctor Who television story in 1965 which does not take place in Galaxy Four. The original script was published as Doctor Who: The Scripts: Galaxy Four (1994), and novelized by Emms as Doctor Who: Galaxy Four (1985); the plot, featuring downed Spaceships and at least two ...
Colgan, Jenny
(1972- ) Scottish author who is of sf interest primarily for writing Ties for the Doctor Who universe, always as Jenny T Colgan or J T Colgan. Earlier, as Jenny Colgan or Beaton, she had begun her career with a number of romances, the first of these being Amanda's Wedding (2000). Her romantic supernatural tales include The Matchmaker (2009) and Uncross My Heart (2011 ebook). ...
Nanotechnology
Item of terminology borrowed by sf writers from theoreticians of future Technology, and increasingly popular in sf from the late 1980s. It seems to have been first used by K Eric Drexler in 1976, and popularized by him in his highly optimistic book on the subject, Engines of Creation (1986). / Nanotechnology – the term loosely combines "nano", the SI (metric system) prefix denoting 10-9, with "technology" – means the technology of the ...
Panting, J Harwood
(1854-1924) UK author, most known for school stories for boys; in True All Through (1909), an sf novel also written for boys, can be found flying machines with wings that flap, and a proposed trip to Mars. [JC]
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, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its listing of Pseudonyms. ...