SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Tuesday 11 November 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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Thien, Madeleine
(1974- ) Canadian author, active from 2000 or before; her early work, all nonfantastic, established her as an author of cultural significance whose novels – like Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) – feelingly and with a mature grasp of storytelling unpack the complex quasi-diasporal life of the vast cohort of people who must braid multi-cultural lives in lands that are "theirs" but not theirs. Thien herself is ...
Lee, Sharon
(1952- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "A Matter of Ceremony" (May 1980 Amazing). Almost all her further work has been in collaboration with Steve Miller, their main endeavour being the extended Liaden Universe sequence of Space Opera tales, set in expansive (though not adventurously described) interstellar venues. The first three titles, ...
Senior, W A
(1953- ) US academic, administratively involved with the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts for many years, serving as President 1994-1998 and between 2002 and 2004; also involved as an organizer of the Association's annual conference, the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts. As a critic, he is best known for Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Variations on the Fantasy Tradition ...
Tanner, Ron
(1953- ) US teacher, musician and author whose short fiction is usually nonfantastic though fruitfully exorbitant; his sf novel, Kiss Me, Stranger: An Illustrated Novel (2011), is a Satire set in a balkanized Dystopian America at a point seemingly close to the End of the World; attempting to keep her family together, the female protagonist runs through a gamut of ...
"Noname"
A House Name for the Frank Tousey publishing firm, used in the late nineteenth century for boys' fiction in several genres, including mysteries and Westerns as well as sf. Of most sf interest were the Frank Reade, Jr. tales (see Frank Reade Library; Luis Senarens) and the slightly later Jack Wright tales (see Luis ...
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 ...