SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 5 September 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 31 August 2026
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Murray, Will
Working name of US author William Patrick Murray (1953-2026), who showed an interest throughout his career in Superheroes of the Pulp tradition (on which he was a known authority) such as Doc Savage, about which figure he wrote the nonfiction Secrets of Doc Savage (1981 chap). In this context he had been literary agent for Lester Dent's estate since 1979. ...
Kohout, Pavel
(1928- ) Czech poet, playwright, author and, since his emigration in 1978, émigré activist; his relations with post-Communist Czech culture have not been easy, and he remains in Vienna. Though his early poetry had been pro-Communist, his politics changed and his work remained unpublished in Czechoslovakia in the period 1968-1989; some was published there in 1990. His sf novel, which deals with the political ...
Cosmic Stories
1. See Amateur Magazine; Jerry Siegel. / 2. US Pulp magazine, three bimonthly issues, March to July 1941, edited by Donald A Wollheim. Cosmic Stories was one of two companion magazines (the other being Stirring Science Stories) started by Wollheim in 1941 and published by Albing ...
Boswell, James
(1906-1971) New Zealand-born painter and illustrator, in the UK from 1925, who sometimes signed his work Bos or Buchan; he was a member of the London Group of painters intermittently from 1927, where his passionate socialism had an ongoing impact on his contemporaries. His work shows the influence of German graphic artists like Georg Grosz and the British James Fitton (1899-1982); in turn, he influenced younger artists like Ronald Searle and Paul Hogarth. A suite of eight vividly premonitory ...
Le Faure, Georges
(1856-1953) French author who sometimes wrote as Georges Faber; his Aventures extraordinaires d'un savant russe (1888-1889-1890-1896 4vols) [for publishing details see Checklist] with Henry de Graffigny – part of which has appeared as The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (trans of the above by Brian Stableford 2009 2vols) – constitutes a ...
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 ...