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Monday 5 October 2026
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 5 October 2026
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Gallun, Raymond Z
(1911-1994) US author and technical writer, born and educated in Wisconsin, a considerable traveller in later years. He began publishing sf stories at the age of eighteen in November 1929, with "The Space Dwellers" in Wonder Stories and "The Crystal Ray" in Air Wonder Stories. In the 1930s he made a 1932 contribution to Hugo Gernsback's ...
Packard, Edward
(1931- ) US author, co-developer with R A Montgomery of the Choose Your Own Adventure Gamebook sequence comprise of tales in which the reader becomes a kind of protagonist of the tale, being addressed in the second-person singular and actively determining the plot whenever cued to make a choice as to the next stage of the action. The ...
Wells, Barry
Pseudonym of UK author Horace Arthur Richards (1911-1971), author of one sf Tie of interest, The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), novelizing the Disaster film The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) [which see]. This novel resolves the film's cliffhanger ending (will the news headline be "World Saved" or "World Doomed"?) on its final page, when the rains do come and ...
Alten, Steve
(1959- ) US author who is perhaps best known for the Meg sequence, beginning with Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997), which is premised on the survival of a megalodon, an extinct species of giant shark reputed to be the most powerful vertebrate predator (see Evolution) ever to exist. The tale, and its sequel, full of Scientific Errors and ...
Richmond, Charles
(? - ) UK author whose sf play, A Step into Infinity (1946 chap), set half-a millennium hence, depicts the end of a vast Future War on Earth, and more cheering events on the planet Xeres. [JC]
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 ...