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Sunday 7 December 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 1 December 2025
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Stoppard, Tom
Working name of Czech-born playwright and screenwriter Tomáš Straussler (1937-2025), in the UK since 1946, the Stoppard surname being acquired from his stepfather when his widowed mother remarried in 1945. His early dramatic work was characterized by extravagant wit and wordplay, and an Absurdist application of logic to surreal or insane situations. Following the broadcast of several Radio plays, his ...
Daniel, F E
(1839-1914) US medical doctor, publisher, teacher and author; he served in the American Civil War as a surgeon, and among other positions served as President of the American Congress on Tuberculosis, 1905-1906. Of sf interest is his one novel, The Strange Case of Dr Bruno (1906), which describes the Invention of a Drug capable of putting subjects into Suspended Animation, thus ...
Nevinson, C R W
(1889-1946) UK author and painter, in active service during World War One as war artist on the front; active as an English exponent of Futurism both as painter, as his war work demonstrated, and as polemicist; Vital English Art (1914 chap) with Filippo Marinetti, a manifesto espousing (and attempting to corner) the Futurism movement in the UK, created an instant controversy, gaining the animosity of ...
Wilson, Theodora Wilson
(1865-1941) UK teacher and author, active in the latter capacity from about 1900. She was born a Quaker, and with the onset of World War One returned to that faith. Of interest is The Last Weapon: A Vision (1916), in which Scientific Romance and fantasy modes intermix: the eponymous Weapon, known as Hellite, is capable of destroying anything it touches. Perhaps in order to make ...
Smith, Kristine
(1958- ) US author whose career under this name (she also writes supernatural thrillers as by Alex Gordon) has been almost entirely devoted to the Jani Killian series – comprising Code of Conduct (1999), Rules of Conflict (2000), Law of Survival (2001), all three assembled as The Rules of Survival (omni 2008), Contact Imminent (2003) and Endgame (2008), both assembled as ...
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 ...