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Thursday 10 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 7 July 2025
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Poyser, Victoria
Earlier name of the American artist now known as Victoria Lisi (1949- ), and the name used for her sf art. The former wife of sf fan Kennedy "Kippy" Poyser (1945-2009), she married artist Julius Lisi in 1987 and then went by Victoria Poyser-Lisi or Victoria (Poyser) Lisi before adopting her current name. She received a BFA from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and although she has attributed her interest in sf art to her attendance at the World Fantasy ...
Hoffmann, Ada
Pseudonym of a Canadian author (? - ) whose legal name, under which she has published academic nonfiction, has not been revealed; she began to release work of genre interest with "The Chartreuse Monster" in Expanded Horizons for July 2010. Monsters in My Mind (coll 2017) assembles this tale, along with nearly fifty additional stories, the collection comprising most of her work in short forms, most of it fantastic but with little sf. ...
Morris, Anthony P
(1849-1921) US businessman, farmer, journalist and author, active in the latter capacity from about 1867, publishing dime novels for publishers like Beadle from around 1872, a typical title being The Man of Steel; Or, the Masked Knight of the White Plume (1882 chap); he may have used pseudonyms, which have not been identified, and some of his tales, not all of which have been identified, may have been sf (see Dime-Novel SF). ...
Long, Charles R
(1904-1978) US author whose two routine sf novels are Infinite Brain (1957) and The Eternal Man (1964). Both are filled with action, the first on a distant planet, the second on an Earth where Immortality is shared by both humans and Aliens. [JC]
Precognition
The usual term for the ESP talent, or Psi Power or Superpower, of seeing into the future. For genuine sf relevance this ability needs to be developed in somewhat more detail than the all too frequent narrative convenience of "some sixth sense warned him ..." Philip K Dick seems to have coined the term "precog" for a thus-gifted person, in "A World of Talent" (October 1954 ...
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 ...