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Sunday 7 December 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.
Site updated on 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Wood, Tat
(? - ) Author, initially in collaboration with Lawrence Miles, of The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who, a nonfiction companion to the Television series Doctor Who whose first-published volume is About Time 3: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who – Seasons 7 to 11 (2004) with Miles. [DRL]
Womack, Marian
(1975- ) Spanish translator, editor and author, married to James Womack, now mostly resident in the UK. She writes Gothic, weird and sf tales in both Spanish and English and teaches in the Oxford University writing programme. She has contributed to important Anthologies, such as The Best of Spanish Steampunk (anth 2015), which she ...
York, J Steven
(1957- ) US author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Starbird" (in L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume V, anth 1989, ed Algis Budrys), and who concentrated on Ties for various enterprises: for the Marvel Comics Generation X series beginning with Generation X: Crossroads (1998); for the ...
Wertham, Fredric
(1895-1981) German-born US psychiatrist and author whose name was legally changed from Friedrich Ignatz Wertheimer in 1927. He is best remembered for his part in the 1950s US outcry against horror and Superhero Comics, expressed in such articles as "What Parents Don't Know About Comic Books" (November 1953 Ladies' Home Journal) and "Blueprints to Delinquency" (May 1954 Readers Digest), and above all in his highly ...
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 ...