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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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Ward, Richard Heron
(1910-1969) UK actor, playwright, director, broadcaster and author, active from the early 1930s, some of whose nonfiction is of interest, including The Powys Brothers: A Study (1935), whose subjects include John Cowper Powys, and A Drug-Taker's Notes (1957) as R H Ward, a strongly analytic description of the effects of LSD use (see Drugs). He is of sf interest for The Sun Shall Rise ...
Bi'en Fū
Pseudonym of Princess Fukuko Asaka (1941-2009) a Japanese sf author better known as the second cousin of Emperor Hirohito. A great grand-daughter of the same Meiji Emperor whose restoration ushered in Japan's modern era, Asaka lost her title during a 1947 pruning of the imperial family tree conducted by US Occupation authorities. Her pseudonym Bi'en Fū (literally: "Beauty Garden") was used in several stories printed in Takumi ...
Alper, Gerald A
(? - ) Writer of whom nothing is known beyond his authorship of the Time-Travel novel My Name Is Vladimir Sloifoiski (1970), a routine exploration of Identity issues. [JC]
Western, Ernest
Pseudonym of UK author E M'Bride (? -? ) for Ninety North (1899), a Lost World tale set in a clement enclave at North Pole, where mammoths have survived; it is inhabited by the descendants of ancient Vikings. [JC]
Murray, W H H
(1840-1904) US minister and author who published some religious nonfiction as by William H H Murray. His Mamelons series beginning with The Doom of Mamelons: A Legend of the Saguenay (1888) describes the history and fate of an American tribe which turns out not to be of "Indian" stock, but comprises the Lost Race remnants of the ancient Basque civilization that had previously populated Atlantis. They live ...
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 ...