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Sunday 7 December 2025
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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Atomic Betty
Canadian-French animated tv series (2004-2008; vt Atomic Betty: Mission Earth). Atomic Cartoons, Breakthrough Entertainment, Télé Images Kids. Created by Trevor Bentley, Mauro Casalese, Bob Davies and Olaf Miller. Directors include Mauro Casalese, Virginie Jallot and Ridd Sorensen. Writers include Jono Howard, Kevin Gillis and Mike Kubat. Voice cast includes Colin Fox, Bruce Hunter, Tajja Isen, Debra McGrath, Mike Marshall and Rick Miller. 78 episodes, usually ...
Hartman, Emerson B
(?1888/1889-1969) US author whose Lunarchia: That Strange World Beneath the Moon's Crust (1937) began a projected six-volume interplanetary sequence in the Edgar Rice Burroughs vein with the discovery of a colourful civilization within the Moon. No further volumes appeared. In The Giant of the Sierras (1945) a Lost World is discovered in California inhabited by giants, ...
Swan American Magazine
UK slim Pulp magazine, published by G G Swan, London. The two (undated) sf issues in the series, #11 (probably 1948) and #15 (probably 1949), were resettings with UK illustrations of parts of Future Fantasy and Science Fiction (a variant title of Future Fiction), December 1942, and of Science Fiction Quarterly, Winter 1942. This was effectively a postwar renewal, with new ...
Wow Comics
US Comic (1940-1948). 69 issues. Fawcett Publications. Artists include Ed Ashe, Jack Binder, Dick MacKay, Carl Pfeufer, C R Schaare, Marc Swayze and Bert Whitman. Script writers include Otto Binder (see Eando Binder), Dick Kraus, Dick MacKay and Joe Millard. Initially 68 pages; gradual reduction to 36 for #30-#41; 52 from #42. The comic began with 9 long strips, but from #6 it usually had only 4-5. Also ...
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 ...