SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 5 September 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 31 August 2026
Sponsor of the day: Paul Giamatti
Murray, Will
Working name of US author William Patrick Murray (1953-2026), who showed an interest throughout his career in Superheroes of the Pulp tradition (on which he was a known authority) such as Doc Savage, about which figure he wrote the nonfiction Secrets of Doc Savage (1981 chap). In this context he had been literary agent for Lester Dent's estate since 1979. ...
Crandall, Melissa
(? - ) US author of Ties, including one for Star Trek, one for Quantum Leap (1989-1993) and a novelization of the two-part opening story of Earth 2 (1994-1995). [JC]
Stacy, Jan
(1948-1989) US author of Military SF novels, including the first four volumes of the Doomsday Warrior sequence in collaboration with Ryder Syvertsen under the joint pseudonym Ryder Stacy; Syvertsen continued the series solo (see his entry for titles). Their only non-series collaboration appeared under their real names: The Great Book of Movie Monsters (1983). Writing as John Sievert, they began the ...
Wheeler, Harriet
(1858-1924) US author whose The Woman in Stone (1903) presents elegiacally, though not without convinced Christian condescension, the declining culture of the Ojibwe nation of Native Americans through a tale in which the discovery of the petrified body of a woman from ancient times opens into the description of a doomed Lost Race. [JC]
Hildebrandt, The Brothers
Working name for the team of American artists Gregory J Hildebrandt (1939-2024) and Timothy Mark Allen Hildebrandt (1939-2006), identical twin brothers, although they also worked separately using the working names Greg Hildebrandt and Tim Hildebrandt. They will forever be regarded primarily as the definitive illustrators of J R R Tolkien because of the famous Tolkien calendars that featured their paintings of his characters; oddly enough, except for one 1975 ...
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 ...