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Thursday 10 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 7 July 2025
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Miller, Richard
(1925-2006) US author whose Snail (1984) is a satirical Time-Travel tale in which the Wandering Jew and a Prussian soldier traverse a late-twentieth-century USA, viewing with dismay the New Age trash – both psychic and physical – which chokes the land, and en route meeting Kilgore Trout (see Kurt Vonnegut Jr). The SQUED sequence comprising Squed ...
EC Comics
Company founded in 1945 by M C Gaines (1896-1947), creator of the format of the modern Comic book and original partner in the company that became DC Comics. The initials stood for both Educational and, later, Entertaining Comics. After Gaines's death the company passed to his son, William M Gaines (1922-1992), who revamped the line to his own taste. Educational Comics was wound down and Entertaining Comics was transformed into a line of ...
Flowers for Algernon
One of the most widely adapted SF stories, Flowers for Algernon (April 1959 F&SF; exp 1966) by Daniel Keyes charts the progress of retarded Charlie/Charly, who develops a powerful Intelligence becomes a genius, and then slowly reverts to his original condition, after an only partially successful experimental treatment. Algernon, a white Mouse, was Charlie's ...
Parker, E Frank
(? - ) UK industrial research chemist, editor of the Fanzine Beyond, and author of a short Space Opera, Girl in Trouble (August 1943 Beyond as "The Stolen Spaceship"; 1944 chap). [JC]
Bolton, Charles E
(1841-1901) US businessman, philanthropist and author, married to the poet and writer on temperance issues, Sarah Knowles Bolton (1841-1916); his posthumously published sf novel, The Harris-Ingram Experiment (1905), conflates capitalist accomplishments, romantic love, a genius inventor and Utopian experiments. [JC]
Robinson, Roger
(1943- ) UK computer programmer, bibliographer and publisher, active in UK Fandom for many years. The Writings of Henry Kenneth Bulmer (1983 chap; rev 1984 chap) is an exhaustive Bibliography of one of the most prolific sf writers, Kenneth Bulmer, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its ...