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Monday 16 February 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 16 February 2026
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Landis, Geoffrey A
(1955- ) US scientist and author, married to Mary A Turzillo. In the former capacity, he has worked for NASA, particularly on Rover design for Mars missions. He began publishing work of genre interest with"Elemental" in Analog for December 1984. His work began rapidly to attract interest and attention: "Vacuum States" (July 1988 Asimov's) posed a pointed set of questions about the ...
Graham, Daniel, Jr
(? - ) US author whose Near Future sf novel, The Gatekeepers (1995), a private entrepreneur, frustrated by the left-leaning American government's refusal to occupy space proactively, sets up his own firm with his estranged wife's money, using modestly advanced Technology to create a weaponized private zone in near space in order to protect us (see ...
Red Band Comics
Mexican/US Comic (1944-1945). #1-#3 Publicaciones Recreativas (Mexico), #4 Lindsay L. Baird Inc. (USA). Four issues (but see below). Artists include Bernard Baily and August Froehlich. Scriptwriters include Bruce Elliott. 52 pages per issue, comprising five long strips and a short text story, plus some brief filler material. Though there were four issues, numbered #1-#4 (and with different dates), #2 has the same content and cover art as ...
Paltock, Robert
(1697-1767) UK lawyer and author, known almost solely for what was probably his only work of fiction, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man: Relating Particularly his Shipwreck Near the South Pole; his Wonderful Passage Thro' a Subterranean Cavern into a Kind of New World [for full subtitle see Checklist] (dated 1751 but 1750 2vols), an example of Proto SF that, after half a century of neglect, became almost as well known in the ...
Sheean, Vincent
(1899-1975) US journalist, traveller and author best known for nonfiction like An American Among the Riffi (1926); he witnessed the Nazi takeover of Prague, and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). Of some sf interest is The Tide (1933), which traces the consequences of the Reincarnation of Jesus Christ in a small American city. [JC]
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 ...