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Saturday 14 March 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 9 March 2026
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Scott, G Firth
(circa 1862-1935) Scottish journalist and author, in Australia from the 1880s until sometime before World War One, then in England. Most of his fiction is nonfantastic, though he remains best-known for The Last Lemurian: A Westralian Romance (Christmas 1896 The Golden Penny Magazine as "Tor Ymmot, Queen of Lemuria"; exp 1898), a Lost Race tale whose explorer protagonist discovers the Underground remains ...
Owens, Clarke
(1951- ) US author whose nonfiction work consists mostly of literary criticism, including the unorthodox Biblical study Son of Yahweh: The Gospels as Novels (2013). Two of his novels are of sf interest: 600ppm: A Novel of Climate Change (2015), set in a Dystopian Near Future America where an alliance of profit-hungry corporations and a supine government has shut down any discussion ...
Gorst, Harold E
(1868-1950) UK journalist, editor and author, of whose ten or more works of fiction two are sf: Without Bloodshed: A Probability of the Twentieth Century (1897), a Satire set in a Near Future UK whose socialist government has been subverted by American millionaires for their own advantage; and Sketches of the Future (coll 1898), which contains several further satires, always from a politically and culturally ...
Palmer, William J
(1890-1982) US judge and author whose sf novel The Curious Culture of the Planet Loretta (1968) – written after his retirement – discusses sexual morality (see Sex); the plot is not gripping. [JC/DRL]
Tarantula
Film (1955). Universal. Directed by Jack Arnold. Written by Martin Berkeley, Robert M Fresco (1930-2014), based on an episode of Science Fiction Theatre titled No Food for Thought (14 May 1955) by Fresco. Cast includes John Agar, Leo G Carroll and Mara Corday. 80 minutes. Black and white. / This better-than-average Monster Movie belongs to the Luddite ...
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 ...