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Wednesday 11 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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Petrey, Susan C
(1945-1980) US author, solely of stories, which she began to publish with "Spareen Among the Tartars" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for September 1979, the first of seven Varkela tales. All these, with two standalone stories including "Spidersong" (September 1980 F&SF), are collected in Gifts of Blood (coll 1990). Varkela are non-supernatural Vampires: Spareen, ...
Bailey, Paul
(1906-1987) US osteopath, publisher, editor and author of novels and nonfiction set in the American West, often on Mormon themes, though his relationship with the authorities governing that religion cooled after he wrote For Time and All Eternity (1964) about the ticklish issue of polygamy; his sf novel, Deliver Me from Eva (1946), deals with the complications ensuing from the hero's osteopath father-in-law's capacity (though legless he is very powerful) to increase ...
Maxwell, Ann
(1944- ) US author, also of detective thrillers as A E Maxwell and romances and romantic suspense as Elizabeth Lowell. She began publishing work of genre interest with Change (1975), set in a Near Future Earth simultaneously challenged by First Contact with investigative Aliens and a Mutation which bestows ...
Alguire, Judith
(1946- ) Canadian author of Young Adult fiction; of sf interest is Zeta Base (1991), in which an ancient wise scientist finds her warnings about the instability of the Sun dangerously disregarded. [JC]
Maddux, Rachel
(1912-1983) US author best known for nonfantastic work like A Walk in the Spring Rain (1966) and who began publishing work of genre interest with "Turnip's Blood" for Story Magazine in 1936. In The Green Kingdom (1957), a Lost World tale, a mysterious enclave serves as a kind of echo chamber that amplifies the interactions of the five bewildered protagonists trapped in the unknown. Some of the stories assembled as ...
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 ...