SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Thursday 17 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 ...
Anderson, Gerry
(1929-2012) UK television producer and author, born Gerald Alexander Abrahams, who worked closely with his wife Sylvia Anderson; he was also an animator and she a voice artist. They will forever be remembered for a succession of 1960s children's puppet adventure shows on television that occasionally dealt with sf themes on a far more extensive scale than contemporary adult programming. Gerry Anderson's first two series, The Adventures of Twizzle (1958) and ...
Adventures of Brisco County, Jr, The
US tv series (1993-1994). Boam/Cuse Productions for Warner Bros. Series creators/executive producers Jeffrey Boam, Carlton Cuse. Coproduced by David Simkins, Paul Marks. Writers included Boam, Cuse, Simkins, Brad Kern, John McNamara, John Wirth. Directors included Kim Manners, Andy Tennant. Starred Bruce Campbell as Brisco, Julius Carry as Lord Bowler, Christian Clemenson as Socrates Poole. Recurring players included Billy Drago as John Bly, Kelly Rutherford as Dixie Cousins, John ...
Straczynski, J Michael
(1954- ) US Television producer, playwright, journalist and author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "A Last Testament for Nick and the Trooper" in Shadows 6 (anth 1983) edited by Charles L Grant; his first novel, Demon Night (1988), like most of his fiction not connected to his television work, has been horror; further titles include OtherSyde ...
Barlow, Jane
(1856-1917) Irish author, often under pseudonyms, including Antares Skorpios (technically a House Name, as her father, James William Barlow, later used that name for an sf novel) and Felix Ryark. A Strange Land (1908) as by Felix Ryark is a Lost Race tale whose protagonist, penetrating a mysterious mist in a tiny boat, comes across the land in question, which is not described ...
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 ...