SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 14 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.
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Markwick, Edward
Working name of UK lawyer and author Edward Markwick Johnson (1851-1925), later his legal name, active in the last quarter of the nineteenth century; his sf novel, The City of Gold: A Tale of Sport, Travel, and Adventure in the Heart of the Dark Continent (1896), direly invades H Rider Haggard territory, taking its protagonists into a scientifically advanced Semitic Lost World in Africa with ...
O'Malley, Kathleen
(1955- ) US author who has collaborated with A C Crispin on two volumes of the latter's StarBridge series of Space Operas for Young Adult readers. Another collaboration is the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Possession (1996) with J M Dillard. [JC/DRL]
Laser Books
Canadian sf imprint initiated in 1975 by Harlequin Books, the US publisher of Mills & Boon romances, under the editorship of Roger Elwood. The books were restricted to a formula which specified a male protagonist, an upbeat ending, no sex or atheism, and a minimum of long words. All Laser Book covers were the work of Frank Kelly Freas. The series was suspended early in 1977 after fifty-seven books had appeared. The Laser ...
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
US tv series (2008-2009). Created by Josh Friedman. Producers include Friedman, Mario Kassar, Joel B Michaels, and James Middleton. Directors include Charles Beeson, Jeffrey G Hunt, and David Nutter. Writers include Friedman, Denise Thé, Natalie Chaidez, and Ashley Miller. Cast includes Lena Headey as Sarah Connor, Thomas Dekker as John Connor, Richard T Jones as James Ellison, Garret Dillahunt as Cromartie/John Henry, Summer Glau as Cameron Phillips, Brian Austin Green as Derek ...
McKinley, Robin
(1952- ) US-born author, in UK for many years, married to Peter Dickinson from 1992 until his death, with whom she has written the Elementals fantasy sequence. For most of her early career she concentrated on fantasy, beginning with what may remain her most famous single tale, Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978), an early and influential Revisionist Fantasy [for that entry, for Robin ...
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 ...