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Wednesday 9 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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Swan, Thor
(1903-1978) US author in whose Near Future Satire Furfooze: A Tale Fantastique (1939) the body of an advanced creature from the Ice Age is brought back to life (see Apes as Human). [JC]
Haskin, Byron
(1899-1984) US cinematographer, special effects creator and director, in the American army during World War One. His film career began in 1919 when he became an assistant cameraman for Louis J Selznick. He directed four films in 1927, but later worked mostly as a cinematographer; he supervised the special-effects department for Warner Bros 1936-1947. In 1947 he began directing again with I Walk Alone, a Hal Wallis production. In 1952 he formed a ...
Vonarburg, Élisabeth
(1947- ) French-born Canadian teacher, editor, critic and author, in Quebec from 1973, naturalized 1976. She was fiction editor 1979-1990 and editor 1983-1985 of Solaris; and began publishing sf with "Marée haute" for Requiem in 1978; the tale appeared as "High Tide" in Twenty Houses of the Zodiac (anth 1979) edited by Maxim Jakubowski. Many of her stories (some ...
Hayles, Brian
(1931-1978) UK screenwriter, best known for his work on various Doctor Who projects (22 episodes for various extended stories between 1966 and 1974); his two books of sf interest are Doctor Who Ties: Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon (1974) and Doctor Who and the Ice Warriors (1976), both based on his own scripts. [JC]
Ariss, Bruce
(1911-1994) US author, illustrator, designer, inventor, muralist and theatre director/producer who studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and then at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland. He published "Dreadful Secret of Jonas Harper" as early as 1948 in What's Doing? Magazine, long before he published his one sf novel, Full Circle (1963), about a Post-Holocaust conflict between Amerindians and a tiny cadre of ...
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 ...