SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Friday 18 July 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 16 July 2025
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Williams, Tess
(1954-2025) UK-born teacher, editor and author, in Australia for many years, there receiving a degree in literature from Curtin University and an MA in creative writing from the University of Western Australia. She began publishing work of genre interest with "The Padwan Affair" in She's Fantastical (anth 1995) edited by Judith Raphael Buckrich and Lucy Sussex. Of sf interest are two novels: Map of Power (1996), set mostly in a ...
Crump, Irving
(1887-1979) US author and editor of Boys' Life for 25 years, 1915-1923 and 1935-?1952. He is known almost exclusively for his sequence of Young Adult Prehistoric SF novels, set in Europe "500,000 years ago" and featuring the resourceful pre-Neanderthal Og, who introduces fire to his tribe, fights off various dangerous beasts including giant tapirs, mammoths, mastodons and snake (though not, ...
Norman, Donald N
Joint pseudonym of US authors Don Horan (? - ) and Norman Stahl (1931- ), in whose Technothriller Thunder Station (1990), which is set in the very Near Future, America and the USSR come to the brink of committing advanced Weapons and starting World War Three. [JC]
Fringe
US tv series (2008-2013). Created by J J Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci. Producers include Abrams, Kurtzman, Orci, Bryan Burk, and Jeff Pinkner. Directors include Brad Anderson, Joe Chappelle, Fred Toye, and Akiva Goldsman. Writers include Abrams, Kurtzman, Orci, Pinkner, J H Wyman, and Goldsman. Cast includes Anna Torv as Agent Olivia Dunham, John Noble as Dr Walter Bishop, Joshua Jackson as Peter Bishop, Lance Reddick as Agent Phillip Broyles, ...
Sobel, Robert
(1931-1999) US academic and author, almost exclusively of nonfiction studies in business history. His only sf novel, For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga (1973), is an Alternate History of post-Revolution America, written in the form of a textbook, with maps and hundreds of footnotes to imaginary sources. The Jonbar Point of the book is the victory of General Burgoyne at Sarasota in October 1777, ...
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 ...