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Wednesday 25 June 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.
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Stewart, Sean
Pseudonym of US author Michael Sean Irwin (1965- ), in Canada from young adulthood but resident in the US again from 1995; much of his work has been fantasy, though his first novel, Passion Play (1992), which is sf, depicts a Near Future America governed by the fundamentalist religious right. The story is told by a female private eye in standard noir style, down to the sequence of interviews with suspects which make up ...
Tolstaya, Tatyana
(1951- ) Russian broadcaster, journalist and author, grand-daughter of Alexei Tolstoy; she should not be confused with Tatyana Sukhotina-Tolstaya (1864-1950), daughter of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910); Tolstaya herself is Leo's great-grandniece. She is of sf interest for her first novel, Kys' (2000; trans Jamey Gambrell as The Slynx 2003), a fantasticated Utopia set in a ...
Dirac Communicator
A Imaginary-Science device invented by James Blish for the story "Beep" (February 1954 Galaxy; exp vt The Quincunx of Time 1973), and used by him also in other stories. It is an instantaneous communicator, named after the great theoretical physicist Paul Dirac (1902-1984); the Blish story contrasts it with Faster Than Light but non-instantaneous ...
Meyrink, Gustav
Initially the pseudonym of Austrian author Gustav Meyer (1868-1932), resident in Prague from early adulthood until his move to Bavaria in 1906; he took the name legally in 1917. His later portrayals of Prague – clearly influenced by his translation of the works of Charles Dickens (1909-1914 16vols) – transform the City into a hauntingly garish Urban Fantasy [for discussion of this term, as used in the 1990s to ...
Lawrence, J A
(1940- ) US illustrator and author, long resident in Greece, married to James Blish from 1964 until his death in 1975, collaborating with him on "Getting Along" (in Again, Dangerous Visions, anth 1972, ed Harlan Ellison) and – sometimes without credit – on many of the stories and some of the Ties he wrote for the Star Trek ...
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 ...