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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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Mitchell, J A
(1845-1918) US editor – he founded Life magazine in 1883, editing it until his death – and author in various genres. The Romance of the Moon (1886 chap) is a fantasy for children; Mitchell's sf proper begins with The Last American: A Fragment from the Journal of Khan-Li, Prince of Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy (1889 chap; exp 1902), a somewhat spoofish Satire in which a thirtieth-century Persian ...
Buck Rogers XXVC
Role Playing Game (1990). Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). Designed by Mike Cook, Michael Dobson, Jeff Grubb, Jim Ward, Warren Spector, Jeff Butler. / Buck Rogers was perhaps the first in the line of quintessentially American mass market Space Opera heroes which continued through Flash Gordon, E E Smith's ...
Anderson, Colin
(1933- ) UK author whose novel Magellan (1970) depicts a Post-Holocaust Earth dominated by a single city, in which a welfare state tyranny holds sway; and the somewhat metaphysical apotheosis afforded its inhabitants. [JC] see also: Cities. /
Adam, Paul
(1862-1920) French journalist, editor and author, mostly of historical novels through which he espoused strongly argued anarchist views. Of sf interest is Lettres de Malaisie ["Letters from Malaysia"] (November 1896-August 1897 La Revue Blanche; 1898; vt La Cité Prochaine ["The Next City"]: Lettres de Malaisie 1908) which described a totalitarian Dystopia occupying much of the interior of Borneo from 1850 onwards. ...
Leeson, Robert
(1928-2013) UK editor and author, active from the mid-1940s, who began publishing his books for children, in which he has since specialized, with Beyond the Dragon Prow (1973), an historical romance. Of sf interest is the Time Rope sequence – Time Rope (1986), Three Against the World (1986), The Metro Gangs Attack (1986) and At War with Tomorrow (1986) – in which a sharp social awareness of the contemporary ...
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 ...