SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 28 March 2023
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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Brown, Eric
(1960-2023) UK author who began publishing sf – after a children's play, Noel's Ark (1982 chap) – with "Krash-Bangg Joe and the Pineal-Zen Equation" for Interzone in Autumn 1987; like several further tales assembled in The Time-Lapsed Man and Other Stories (coll 1990), it is set in a future world dominated by the effects of bio-engineering and dense with information. This marriage of Cordwainer ...
Unferth, Deb Olin
(1968- ) US author initially noted for her short stories, most of which have been assembled as Minor Robberies (coll 2007) and Wait Till You See Me Dance (coll 2017), many of them surreally apophthegmatic. She is of sf interest for Barn 8 (2020), a narrative which edges by steps into the very Near Future as Climate Change hits and an animal-liberation freeing of ...
Miller, Joaquin
Pseudonym of US poet and author Cincinnatus Hiner Miller (1837-1913). Various birth dates have been suggested, but Miller was notoriously unreliable; we give here a current consensus. His adopted name (he said) was taken from Joaquin Murieta (?1829-1853), a famously legendary California desperado (who may have never in fact existed). Miller's poetry, which was nonfantastic, wears surprisingly well; he was active as a journalist from about 1862, making use – as did Ambrose ...
Collier, John
(1901-1980) UK author, poet and short-story author who spent much of his career, after about 1935, in the USA writing filmscripts. He was known mainly for his sophisticated though sometimes rather precious short stories, generally featuring the kind of acerbic snap ending often found in the disillusioned, wary kind of Slick Fantasy [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] introduced by Saki, who ...
Levin, Bernard
(1928-2004) UK journalist and critic best remembered for his vast output of often polemical and/or satirical newspaper essays, notably in The Times 1971-1997; nine volumes of selections, a small fraction of the total, appeared in book form. Levin's nonfiction A World Elsewhere (1994) is a popular survey of, and meditation upon, the various myths and dreams of Utopia – from ancient legends of Atlantis to ...
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 ...