SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Monday 10 August 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 3 August 2026
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Wilson, D Harlan
(1971- ) US author whose first publication, The Kafka Effekt (coll of linked stories 2001), assembles and interlinks a pattern of short narratives, proclaimedly post-modern in their structuring (see Postmodernism and SF), and clearly intended to surrealize the parable abyss of Franz Kafka, while evoking twenty-first century cultural Amnesia and visions of ...
EC Comics
Company founded in 1945 by M C Gaines (1896-1947), creator of the format of the modern Comic book and original partner in the company that became DC Comics. The initials stood for both Educational and, later, Entertaining Comics. After Gaines's death the company passed to his son, William M Gaines (1922-1992), who revamped the line to his own taste. Educational Comics was wound down and Entertaining Comics was transformed into a line of ...
Armstrong, Jennifer
(1961- ) US author, almost exclusively fiction and nonfiction for children and the Young Adult audience, almost none of this output (approximately 50 titles) being of sf interest. But the remarkable Young Adult Fire-Us sequence comprising Fire-Us, Book 1: The Kindling (2002), Fire-Us, Book 2: The Keepers of the Flame (2002) and Fire-Us, Book 3: The Kiln (2003), ...
X-Men
US Comic-book series, created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee for Marvel Comics in 1963. Kirby drew the first 11 issues and Lee wrote the first 19. Not as immediately successful as Marvel's other properties, it had an initial 66-issue run, and then ran reprints until #93 (1974). A new team of X-Men was introduced in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (cover dated May 1975, released in ...
Eidson, William B
(? - ) US author of The Blue Helix (1999), a Near Future tale in which the fatal illness of his wife inspires the protagonist's Invention of an Immortality Drug which also confers super powers. [JC]
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 ...