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Friday 16 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 ...
West, Jessamyn
(1902-1984) US author active from the 1930s, most famous for the tales of rural Quakerism assembled in The Friendly Persuasion (coll of linked stories 1945). She is of sf interest for two novellas. "The Pismire Plan" (in Cross Section 1948: A Collection of New American Writing, anth 1948, edited by Edwin Seaver [1900-1987]) is a spoofish but ultimately serious Satire set in a Near Future ...
Offworld
US Semiprozine published by Neil Feigeles of Graphic Image Press, edited by Arnaldo Lopez; two issues, Fall 1993 and Winter 1993/94. Published in slim standard format (10 x 6.7 in; 257 x 170 mm), saddled stapled, it was printed in an edition of 5,000 copies, on quality coated stock with colour artwork throughout its 64 pages. Offworld emerged from the comic-book world (see Comics) rather than a descent via the ...
Palahniuk, Chuck
Working name of Charles Michael Palahniuk (1962- ), US author of transgressive fiction and Satire, some of whose works apply genre devices disruptive to the mundane modern world in which they are ostensibly set (see Equipoise). A graduate from the University of Oregon School of Journalism, Palahniuk found success with Fight Club: A Novel (1996), one of several works lampooning ...
Wallace, Jon
(1954- ) UK author, musician and comedian, working with Jon Cross in the comedy sketch duo Scanida-Hus and recording music as Ompsk and Nosp. He began to publish work of genre interest with "The Walrus and the Icebreaker" in Interzone for July/August 2011; some later stories from 2023 are bylined J Wallace. The Kenstibec sequence comprising Barricade (2014), Steeple (2015) and Rig (2016) ...
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 ...