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Monday 9 March 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.
Site updated on 9 March 2026
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Edwards, Charman
Working name of Frederick Anthony Edwards (1896-1961), who seems to have adopted Charman as a third forename (appearing on his marriage certificate though neither the birth nor the death certificate); most of his output consisted of crime fiction. Fear Haunts the Roses (1936), a mystery novel featuring his series character Percy Aloysius Huff, involves political repercussions resulting from the discovery of a Death Ray. Of greater sf interest ...
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
(1809-1894) US poet, essayist, editor, medical doctor and author, of sf interest in the latter capacity for Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny (January 1860-April 1861 The Atlantic Monthly as "The Professor's Story"; 1861 2vols), in which the classic fantasy and supernatural topos of the Lamia is reconstructed in terms of Biology: the eponymous young female, having been "poisoned" in the womb with rattlesnake venom (see ...
Mitchell, V E
Working name of US author Victoria Estelle Mitchell Gustafson (1954-2017), married to Jon Gustafson, who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Captain" in The Moscow Moffia Presents Rat Tales (anth 1987) edited by Jon Gustafson (her husband) and Dean Wesley Smith under the joint pseudonym Smith Gustafson. Mitchell wrote four novel Ties ...
Cardona Peña, Alfredo
(1917-1995) Costa Rican poet, essayist, journalist, academic and author who lived in Mexico from 1938, but who preserved ties with his native country throughout his life. Together with the Chilean Hugo Correa, he could be considered the Latin American version of Ray Bradbury. He began to study arts in San José, Costa Rica, and finished in El Salvador, where he also started working as a ...
Davies, Paul
(1946- ) UK physicist, science writer and sf author whose scientific nonfiction is perhaps more distinguished than his sf. His novel Fireball (1987) has Antimatter pellets impacting Earth and creating chaos; although their actual source is an Alien spacecraft, they are interpreted by the USA as a Soviet weapon. The ideas are interesting, the thriller elements routine. However, his academic science ...
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 ...