SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 15 June 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 15 June 2026
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Yolen, Jane
(1939-2026) US author, partially resident in Scotland, who began publishing poems and articles when still in college, and who first came to notice with books for children, the first of many being Pirates in Petticoats (1963). Of her circa 460 titles, many of which won awards in her field, most were for children (see listing below for some of these), many of them being picture books for younger children; most of her adult fiction, of which she wrote relatively little, was ...
Ellis, Mark
(? - ) US publisher and author much of whose creative work – since beginning his career in the 1980s with storylines for Star Rangers and other Comics – has been tied closely to visual projects, including Graphic Novels such as H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness (1991-1992 H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness; 1993). He is ...
Rex the Runt
UK stop-frame animated tv series (1998-2001). Aardman Animations for BBC Bristol. Created by Richard Goleszowski (aka Richard Starzak). Executive producers: Paul Kofod, Peter Lord, Colin Rose, Michael Rose, David Sproxton and Tom Van Waveren. Writers include Andrew Franks, Richard Starzak and Kevin Wrench. Directors include Richard Starzak. Voice cast includes Steve Box, Andrew Franks, Elisabeth Hadley, Andrew Jeffers, Colin Rote and Kevin Wrench. 26 ten-minute episodes. Colour. / ...
Frost, Gregory
(1951- ) US author who has been heavily involved in writers' workshops including Clarion and who began publishing sf with "In the Sunken Museum" for Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1981; most of his work for a decade was governed by its fantasy tone, including his first novel, Lyrec (1984), which does evoke ...
Wagers, K B
(? - ) US author whose Indranan War sequence comprising Behind the Throne (2016) and After the Crown (2016) is a Space Opera set at the heart of a beleaguered Galactic Empire run on matriarchal lines (see Feminism). Their protagonist, a princess who suddenly succeeds to the vastly powerful throne, finds herself enmired in ...
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 ...