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Wednesday 25 May 2022
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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Trow, George W S
(1943-2006) US journalist, playwright, polemicist and author, probably best known for a work of moderately savage, socially conservative criticism of the American Media Landscape, Within the Context of No Context (17 November 1980 The New Yorker; 1981). He is of modest sf interest for the stories assembled in Bullies (coll 1980), surreal Satires set in unclearly discernible Alternate Worlds. As George Swift Trow he co-scripted the film Savages (1972), directed by James Ivory. [JC]
Mikaelsen, Ben
(1952- ) Bolivian-born Danish author, in the US from an early age, who work consists mostly of Young Adult novels; Countdown (1996), which is set in the Near Future, explores culture tensions and personal growth through initially disputatious conversations between a young astronaut and an African lad aspiring to a compassionate life. [JC]
Edric, Robert
Pseudonym of UK author Gary Edric Armitage (1956- ), who began his career as G E Armitage with a nonfantastic novel, A Season of Peace (1985), continuing for two decades during which at least fifteen more novels, all but one as Robert Edric, were released – all of them nonfantastic, though The Broken Lands (1992), about the fatal arctic expedition headed by Sir John Franklin (1786-1847), pushes to the edge of Fantastika in its depiction of the survival of some crew ...
Keshishian, John M
(1923-2021) Greek-born surgeon, academic, archaeologist and author, in US from 1931, whose Near Future sf novel, with Jacob Hay (whom see for details), is Autopsy for a Cosmonaut (1969; vt Death of a Cosmonaut 1970). The Mayan Shard Caper (2006) focuses on the speculative assumption that there may have been a second Mayan race, perhaps distinct in some ways from Homo sapiens. [JC]
Stout, Rex
(1886-1975) US author who began publishing poems and stories in magazines as early as 1910, and became best known for his Nero Wolfe detective stories, beginning with Fer-de-Lance (1934) and continuing to the end of his life, the last being A Family Affair (1975); none of the Wolfe novels and novellas have any fantastic content. Some of his early work does, however, contain fantastic elements: the book-length "A Prize for Princes" (2 May 1914 Cavalier/30 May 1914 All-Story Cavalier Weekly [see ...
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 ...