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Wednesday 6 December 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.
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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
Frank Reade Library
US Dime-Novel SF series, letter-size. 191 issues (though #188-#191 are reprints of #1-#4) 24 September 1892 to 8 August 1898, weekly to 8 June 1894 (#82), biweekly from then on. Cost five cents. Published by Frank Tousey, Publisher, New York. (Partial reissue 1902-1904, partial UK reprint.) All issues were printed on very poor paper and seldom survive in good condition; the 1902-1904 reissue, with coloured covers, is sometimes considered more desirable than ...
St Nicholas Magazine
US magazine for boys and girls, published by Scribner, later by Century Co, then by American Education Press. Founded by Rosewell Smith and edited by Mary Mapes Dodge 1873-1905, William Fayal Clarke 1905-1927, and others. Assistant editors included Frank R Stockton 1873-1881 and Tudor Jenks 1887-1902. It appeared monthly November 1873-May 1930 as St. Nicholas, then as St Nicholas Magazine from June 1930 until its demise in June 1943. The ...
Browne, Peter Francis
(? - ) UK author whose sf novel, Land's End (1981), presents a Dystopian vision of a Near Future Britain conveyed through the experiences of a schoolteacher caught up in a world of unremitting savagery. [JC]
Guthridge, George
(1948- ) US teacher and author who has also used the byline George Florance-Guthridge; he began to publish work of genre interest with "Dolls' Demise" in Analog for July 1976, with many further short stories following in F&SF and other venues. His first novel, Death Mask of Pancho Villa (1987) with Carol Gaskin, is a contribution to the Bantam Books Time Machine ...
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 ...