SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 16 July 2025
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 14 July 2025
Sponsor of the day: Stuart Hopen
Burke, James Lee
(1936- ) US author active from the mid-1960s, though he only became widely known with the long Dave Robicheaux sequence of noir crime novels beginning with The Neon Rain (1987); set mostly in Louisiana from the mid-1980s on, they have become recognized as a significant series of interwoven tales – almost a roman fleuve – in which a portrayal of the gradual destruction of bayou country and the Mississippi delta gradually ...
Fichman, Frederick
(? - ) US author whose SETI (1990) pits its teenaged hero against both US and Soviet governments – whose representatives are envious of his freelance initiatives – in the race to make First Contact (see also SETI). The teenager does very well. The SETI sequence is continued in self-published sequels: see Checklist below. [JC] see also: ...
Geen, Eric
(? - ) UK author of an sf Satire, Tolstoy Lives at 12N B9 (1971), published at a time when in the UK residents in garden suburbs and meticulously designed exurbs were beginning to live through the downside of the knowing solicitude of the town-planners who thought the destruction wreaked by World War Two was an opportunity. Tolstoy is a boy; his residential address fixes him into a ...
Lindskold, Jane
(1962- ) US author, primarily of fantasy, including her two series – the Athanor sequence beginning with Changer (1998), the Firekeeper Saga beginning with Through Wolf's Eyes (2001) and the Breaking the Wall sequence beginning with Thirteen Orphans (2008) [for titles see below] – plus two continuations of Roge Zelazny drafts, Donnerjack (1997) and ...
Pirates of 1920, The
UK silent film (1911). Cricks & Martin Films. Directed by David Aylott and A E Coleby. Cast unknown. 21 minutes. Black and white. / In the then Near Future of 1920, pirates descend from their Airship on rope ladders, boarding an ocean-going ship and stealing the gold bullion it carries. As they leave, ship's officer Jack Manley grabs the ladder as it is being raised – a fortunate act, as the pirates now drop bombs ...
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 ...