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Monday 16 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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Weiner, Ellis
(1950- ) US author, humorist and editor, a former member of the National Lampoon editorial team. His first book-length work was The Great Muppet Caper! The Making of the Masterpiece (1981), a spoof behind-the-scenes production account of The Great Muppet Caper (1981), the second Muppets film. Of direct sf interest is National Lampoon's Doon (1984), a very broad Parody of Frank ...
Douglas, Iain
(? - ) UK author of whom nothing is known beyond his authorship of four sf adventures for Robert Hale Limited, beginning with Point of Impact (1979). [JC]
Goulart, Ron
(1933-2022) US author, born in California, where he lived until the late 1960s and which he made the effective template (whatever the venue or planet might be called) for much of his sf, including the large loose Barnum System sequence. After graduation he worked in an advertising agency, later putting on record the influence of this experience on the forming of his concise, polished style. He began to publish work of genre interest with "Letters to the ...
Marfax, Clyde
Author (? - ), perhaps pseudonymous, of whom nothing is known beyond the appearance of this byline on the unremarkable Planets of Peril (1954 chap), #4 in the shortlived Fantastic Science Thriller pocketbook series. Marfax has sometimes been identified as a pseudonym of the woman who wrote as Erroll Collins, but stylistic evidence suggests otherwise. ...
Portugal
Inspired by literary trends of the period, Portuguese Proto-Sf novels in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries depicted future or remote Utopian societies that are visited and discussed at length by travellers from the present world and time. Great care is given to the shifts in world order and morality and less to scientific achievements, including the modes of Transportation to those ...
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 ...