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Saturday 11 April 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.
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Komroff, Manuel
(1890-1974) US author of I, the Tiger (1933), a tale Equipoisal between fantasy and sf: the narration, from the point-of-view of a caged tiger, is fantasy; the Hollywood frame (see California), in which a "superfilm" is exorbitantly described, pushes some elements of Satire beyond the mundane. [JC]
Butler, D J
(1973- ) US lawyer and author who also signs as Dave Butler and D John Butler, much of whose work has consisted of fantasy series, along with a small number of stories and several series of sf interest. The first of these, the Alternate History City of Saints sequence beginning with Liahona (2012 ebook), depicts the American Civil War in Steampunk terms, featuring ...
Greenwood Press
US specialist publishing house founded in 1967, based in Westport, Connecticut, whose books were largely academic and sometimes bibliographical; it took a special interest in sf, and was one of the major academic publishers in this area. Among the commentaries on sf published by Greenwood Press are Martha A Bartter's The Way to Ground Zero: The Atomic Bomb in American Science Fiction (1988), Thomas D ...
Real Genius
Film (1985). Tri-Star/Delphi III. Directed by Martha Coolidge. Written by Neal Israel, Pat Proft, Peter Torokvei, based on a story by Israel and Proft. Cast includes William Atherton, Gabe Jarret, Val Kilmer, Michelle Meyrink and Robert Prescott. 106 minutes. Colour. / Genius students at a college for advanced science are manipulated into designing a high-power laser by their corrupt professor (Atherton), who unknown to them is supplying it to a cold-blooded government agency as a ...
Hamilton, Todd Cameron
(1962- ) US illustrator and author who first published artwork in Fandom venues, notably interior art as Todd Hamilton for the Worldcon publication Chicon IV Program Book (anth 1982) edited anonymously. He went on to create cover art for various titles including John Varley's Blue Champagne (coll 1986), which he also illustrated throughout; several issues ...
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 ...