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Sunday 12 July 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2026
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Bayley, Barrington J
(1937-2008) UK author, active as a freelance under various names in the first decades of his career, author of juvenile stories, picture-strips and features as well as sf, which he began to publish with "Combat's End" for Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine #4 in 1954, where his name was given as J Barrington Bayley. His sf pseudonyms included P F Woods (at least ten stories), Alan Aumbry (one story), John Diamond (one story), and ...
Hader, Berta
(1890-1976) US illustrator and author, born in Mexico of American parents in transit, whose copious work, in collaboration with her husband, includes one Young Adult sf tale, The Skyrocket (1946) with Elmer Hader, though it may be the case that the Rocket in question is fuelled by Magic. [JC]
Mannes, Marya
Working name of Marilen Marie Marya Mary von Heiseberg Mannes (1904-1990), US author, features editor and journalist, often on Feminist themes. Her first novel, Message from a Stranger (1948), is an afterlife fantasy. In her sf Satire They (1968), the USA is taken over by the under-30s, who determine that everyone must retire by the age of 50, live in segregated Keeps, and undergo ...
Connolly, Roy
(1893-1966) Australian journalist and author who worked as a political journalist for the Queensland Labor Party's Daily Standard during the 1930s. While in the UK (1931-1934) he collaborated with Frank McIlraith (about whom nothing is known) on a Scientific Romance, Invasion from the Air: A Prophetic Novel (1934), depicting a Future War in which ...
Lach-Szyrma, W S
(1841-1915) UK Anglican clergyman and author, son of the Polish philosopher and soldier Krystyn Lach Szyrma (1790-1866), who had come to the UK in 1832; Lach-Szyrma (he hyphenated his surname) began writing his series of Scientific Romances (see also Planetary Romance), featuring a Fantastic Voyage around the Solar System by the winged Venusian ...
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 ...