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Friday 22 September 2023
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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.
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Gaston, H A
(? -? ) US author of Mars Revealed; Or, Seven days in the Spirit World [for full title see Checklist below] (1880) as by A Spirit Yet in the Flesh, which describes in terms enunciated in the subtitle its protagonist's trip to a Utopian Mars and back again. Not mentioned there are his discovery of high Technology including Airships and ...
Tourgée, Albion Winegar
(1838-1905) US lawyer, judge, diplomat, soldier, editor and author, active in the Southern states of America where he was notable for his pro-Black views, expressed in various manners, including essays (1868-1870) as by Wenckar and in 1878 as "C"; in France from 1897 (he was of French and German parentage). As an author Tourgée, who also wrote as by Henry Churton, is best known for an autobiographical novel, A Fool's Errand, By One of the Fools (1870), set in North Carolina ...
Pešek, Luděk
(1919-1999) Czech artist and author, whose first novels (about social inequalities; not sf, but listed below for convenience) were published in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s, but from 1968, after being exiled by the communist regime, he lived in Switzerland, his books being first published in German translation; they have been widely translated into other languages. His astronomical paintings are well known, and have been featured in National Geographic; one appeared as the cover art ...
Santesson, Hans Stefan
(1914-1975) US editor and author born in France of Swedish parents, raised in Sweden and emigrated with his mother to the USA in 1923 after his parents divorced. They settled in Brooklyn where his mother worked as a commercial artist. Before entering the world of publishing Santesson devoted much of his time helping immigrants to America, especially from India. He was noted for his humanitarianism and this was reflected in his work as an editor with a selfless dedication to helping others. His ...
Hadfield, Robert L
(1888-1958) UK author, who wrote some popular adventure fiction, including a few Sexton Blake stories (see Sexton Blake Library), none collected. His two sf novels with Frank E Farncombe, both of which come at the end of the brief era when speculations as to the powers of the Radio were moderately rife, are the Near Future Ruled by Radio (1925), ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...