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Wednesday 16 July 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.
Site updated on 16 July 2025
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Weaver, Richard
(1936- ) UK artist and graphic designer who studied at the Royal College of Arts in the 1950s, worked for various design agencies, and set up his own Richard Weaver (Designs) Ltd in 1975. He created numerous covers for sf books issued by the British publisher Dennis Dobson from 1965 to 1980, and apparently did no other sf genre work, though he is also credited for a small number of Penguin crime paperbacks including some by Michael Innes. ...
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 ...
Thorne, Anthony
(1904-1973) UK playwright and author whose Thirteen O'Clock: A Play in Three Acts (1929) is set mostly in an unnamed "super City" in the moderately distant Near Future, where despite the efforts of its brave protagonist – who with the aid of his Invention of a powerful explosive blows up buildings as an act of protest – it proves impossible to destabilize rampant capitalism. The ...
Black, Christopher
(? - ) Pseudonymous US author – real name unknown – of the short-lived Star Challenge Choose-Your-Own-Plot series of interplanetary adventure Gamebooks; some readers have found the Robot amusing. [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, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...