SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 12 March 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.
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Livingston, Harold
(1924-2022) US screenwriter and author, perhaps best known as the scriptwriter for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). His first novel, the nonfantastic The Coasts of the Earth (1954), was published misleadingly as by Harold E Livingston. His fourth novel, The Climacticon (1960), spoofs Sex obsessions in a borderline-sf tale (see Leisure). [JC] ...
Aiken, Joan
(1924-2004) UK author, daughter of Conrad Aiken, stepdaughter of Martin Armstrong [for both men see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], and sister of John Aiken; active from around 1940. She is best known as a highly prolific author of fantasy for children and Young Adult readers: her first novel, The Kingdom and the Cave (1960), features an ...
Bachelder, John
(1817-1906) US inventor and author of A.D. 2050: Electrical Development at Atlantis (1890) as by A Former Resident of "The Hub", one of many "answers" to Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888). In this early example of the Sequel by Other Hands, fifty years have passed, the world has decayed with the exception of the breakaway land of Atlantis in America, where an ...
Parrish, Robin
(1975- ) US journalist and author on Christian themes, whose Dominion sequence, comprising Relentless (2006), Fearless (2007) and Merciless (2008), is set in a Post-Holocaust America riven by world-threatening conflict between Good and Evil, the sources of this conflict being ancient, the outcome Eschatological. Offworld (2009) begins with ...
Barry, C J
(? - ) US author most of whose books are nonfantastic romances; of sf interest is the loose Unforgettable romantic Space Opera sequence beginning with Unearthed (2003), all five tales set in an interstellar world whose plots and characters directly or indirectly revolve around planet Earth. Various members of the extended cast meet, intertwine, romance each other, have Sex. The ...
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 ...