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Wednesday 7 October 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 6 October 2026
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
DeLillo, Don
(1936- ) US author, active from about 1960, though he has never collected his early fiction; after the publication of his first novel, Americana (1970), he very rapidly established a reputation for brilliance and seriousness, and for an unrelentingly adventurous Equipoise in subject matter and shape of story (see also Fabulation); as a ...
Kirk, Richard A
(1962- ) UK-born artist, illustrator and author, in Canada from childhood, active as an illustrator from the 1990s. His curvilinear, chiaroscuro-ridden, metamorphic landscapes and portraits show the influence (which he has openly acknowledged) of predecessors from Aubrey Beardsley (1866-1896) and Mervyn Peake, on to contemporaries like Frank Frazetta and Moebius (Jean ...
Ball, Brian N
(1932-2020) UK author, until 1965 a teacher and lecturer, subsequently freelance, who began publishing sf with "The Pioneer" in New Worlds for February 1962, soon after editing a juvenile anthology, Tales of Science Fiction (anth 1964). His first novel, Sundog (1965), is one of his better books, tinged with Space Opera, in which – though restricted by incomprehensible and uncomprehending ...
Bell, Matt
(1980- ) US editor and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Mario's Three Lives" in Barrelhouse for 2007; several of his early tales, some gonzo and some coldly lucid, have been assembled as How the Broken Lead the Blind (coll 2009 chap) and How They Were Found (coll 2010). Wolf Parts (coll of linked stories 2010) comprises a set of forty twice-told fragments circumambulating the Little Red Riding Hood ...
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 ...