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Friday 18 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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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 ...
Miller, Thomas
(? -? ) UK author of a Lost Race tale, Fred and the Gorillas (1870), in which a race of advanced gorillas (see Apes as Human) is discovered, but treated spoofishly. [JC]
Nearing, H, Jr
Working name of Homer C Nearing Jr (1915-2003), US author and professor of English at Pennsylvania Military College, married to Alice Eleanor Jones. His series of fourteen stories about Professor Cleanth Penn Ransom and Professor Archibald MacTate, mathematician and philosopher respectively, appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, beginning with "The Poetry Machine" in Fall 1950 (see ...
Hanifin, John M
(? -? ) US author, whose reported death circa 1898 seems unlikely as manuscripts in his name were being submitted for publication five years later; his Lost Race novel, The Blind Men and the Devil (1891) as by Phineas, describes the experiences of a married couple who, mistaken for dead, are dumped into a river and discover an Underground world inhabited by a blind race. ...
Courage the Cowardly Dog
US animated tv series (1999-2002). Stretch Films. Created and directed by John R Dilworth. Written by Irv Bauer, David Steven Cohen, John R Dilworth and William Hohauser. Voice cast includes Arthur Anderson, Marty Grabstein, Thea White and Lionel G Wilson. 52 23-minute episodes (each usually comprising two stories), plus the pilot and a special. Colour. / Courage (Grabstein) is an abandoned Dog rescued by an old farming couple, the kindly Muriel Bagge ...
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 ...