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Sunday 11 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.
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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 ...
Mayne, Andrew
(1973- ) US stage magician and author, probably best known in the former capacity; his fiction is various, some of it comprising nonfantastic thrillers [not listed below]. He is of sf interest for three series: the Chronological Man sequence beginning with The Chronological Man: The Monster in the Mist (2011 ebook), adventures in Steampunk-inflected venues; the Station Breaker sequence beginning with ...
Falk, Henri
Working name of French author Henri Falque (1881-1937), who wrote some long stories of sf interest, two of them contained in Le Cadre volé ["The Stolen Frame"] (coll 1910), one comprising L'Age de Plomb (circa 1922), both vols trans Brian Stableford as The Age of Lead and Other Fantastic Romances (omni 2010). "L'Etonnante aventure de Sébastien Philipot" (here trans as"The Astonishing Adventure ...
Leisure
The gradual Automation of industry and the progressive reduction of working hours has already extended the amount of leisure time which citizens of the developed nations have, and most later twentieth-century images of the future assume that everyone will have even more of it in times to come. In The Next 200 Years: A Scenario for America and the World (1976), the Futures Studies authorities Herman ...
Shanks, Edward
(1892-1953) UK editor, poet and author in various genres whose Scientific Romance, The People of the Ruins: A Story of the English Revolution and After (16 October 1919-12 February 1920 Land and Water; 1920), seems clearly to reflect the aftermath of World War One (Shanks, who was invalided from front line combat in 1915, was a war poet). The novel applies ...
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 ...