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Saturday 8 February 2025
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Mason, Grace Sartwell
(1876-1966) US author, actively prolific as a short story writer for many years; of her novels, The Bear's Claws (1913) with John Northern Hilliard is of sf interest as a Lost World tale set in Persia, where an ancient City is discovered; the otherness of this city is muted by its discoverers' calling it Persepolis, a genuine ancient city whose location has been known for ...
Carr, John F
(1944- ) US author who began publishing sf with The Ophidian Conspiracy (1976), an unpretentious Space Opera which demonstrated considerable imagination but a stylistic gaucheness; both characteristics mark his subsequent novels, Pain Gain (1977) and Carnifax Mardi Gras (extract February 1982 Fantasy Book as "Dance of the Dwarfs"; 1982), though the latter shows a ...
Geissler, Ludwig A
(? -? ) US author, not to be confused with the American writer Ludwig S Geissler, or with several Germans with the same name; his Looking Beyond: A Sequel to "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy, and an Answer to "Looking Forward" by Richard Michaelis (1891), is a Sequel by Other Hands which, with some ingenuity, treats the return to 1888 of Julian West, Edward Bellamy's ...
Downing, David
(1946- ) UK historian and author of the Hitler Wins Alternate History text, The Moscow Option: An Alternative Second World War (1979; rev 2001), which depends upon two Jonbar Points: Hitler is immobilized after a plane crash, which allows his generals to drive straight to Moscow; and the Americans are defeated at Midway. The text stops at 1942, with ...
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 ...