SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 12 August 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 10 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
McConnell, James V
(1925-1990) US biologist and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Life Sentence" in Galaxy Science Fiction for January 1953, and who in 1959 founded a science magazine-cum-Fanzine, The Worm Runner's Digest, in which alongside scientific papers (in particular on planarian worms, his speciality) he published spoofs and Satires. Many of these are assembled as ...
Marvel Treasury Edition
US Comics series from Marvel Comics in oversize tabloid perfect-bound format measuring 10 ins x 14 ins. Editors included Archie Goodwin, Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman. Writers included Jo Duffy, Scott Edelman, Stever Gerber and Bill Mantlo. Artists included Klaus Janson, Bob McLeod, Roger ...
Roddenberry, Gene
(1921-1991) US television scriptwriter, producer, director and creator of Star Trek. Roddenberry began writing in the late 1940s while working as a pilot for a commercial airline. In 1953 he sold his first television script and in 1956 his first that was sf, a genre in which he had not previously been particularly interested. In 1954 he became a full-time television writer. In 1963 he created and produced a series of his own – The Lieutenant – ...
Castle, Jeffery Lloyd
Working name of Geoffrey Lloyd Castle (1898-1990), UK author and aeronautical engineer who served in the Royal Field Artillery and then the Royal Flying Corps during World War One, and again in the former in World War Two. He was married to the author Margery Sharp (1905-1991) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. His first sf novel, Satellite E One (1954), deals somewhat eccentrically with the scientific ...
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 ...