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Wednesday 14 May 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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Fabian, Stephen E
(1930-2025) American artist, sometimes credited as Steve Fabian or simply Fabian. The self-trained Fabian first worked as an electronic engineer, but he began contributing art to Fanzines in the late 1960s and became a full-time professional artist in 1973. He did a number of covers and interior art for SF Magazines, mostly Amazing, Fantastic, and ...
Aiken, John
(1913-1990) US-born UK author, son of Conrad Aiken (1889-1973) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] and brother of Joan Aiken and Jane Aiken Hodge (1917-2009). John Aiken published his first sf story, "Camouflage", with Astounding in April 1943, in the Probability Zero sequence of short-shorts (see Flash Fiction); though ...
Caswell, Brian
(1954- ) Welsh-born song-writer, teacher and author, in Australia from the age of 12. His sf and fantasy work of interest is all written for a Young Adult audience, beginning with Merryll of the Stones (1989), a Timeslip tale whose protagonist ends up in ancient Wales; Dreamslip (1994) is similar. A Cage of Butterflies (1992) is a ...
Hunt, Stephen
(1966- ) Canadian author now in the UK who was involved with the online Newszine SFcrowsnest from 1991 to 2000; he publishes nonfantastic work as by Stephen A Hunt. He began to publish work of genre interest with "The Strange Intervention of Sir WWW" in ProtoStellar #2 for 1991; his first novel, For the Crown & the Dragon (1993), set in an Alternate History version of the ...
Williams, Gordon
(1934-2017) Scottish journalist and author best known for the nonfantastic The Siege of Trencher's Farm (1969), filmed by Sam Peckinpah as Straw Dogs (1971), and for the Hazell detective novels with UK footballer and football manager Terry Venables (1943-2023), the two writing together as P B Yuill. This series began with Hazell Plays Solomon (1974), with all three volumes being later televised. A marginally sf football novel written 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 ...