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Saturday 14 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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Wyss, Johann David Von
(1743-1818) Swiss philosopher and author, of sf interest for Der Schweizerische Robinson (1812-1813; trans William Godwin as The Family Robinson Crusoe 1814) [for subtitles of original and trans see Checklist below], now generally known as The Swiss Family Robinson, a nonfantastic tale which nevertheless – together with the book which inspired it, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) – served as a ...
Glynn-Ward, Hilda
Working name of UK-born author Hilda Glynn Howard (1887-1966), in Canada from 1910. She is of sf interest for her violently racist Yellow Peril novel, The Writing on the Wall – In Three Parts Past Present and Future (1921) (see Race in SF). Set in British Columbia, the tale describes the insidious Invasion of Canada by Japanese and Chinese forces masked as immigrants, from ...
Onley, David C
(1950- ) Canadian television reporter (designated Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario in July 2007) whose sf novel is the Technothriller Shuttle: A Shattering Novel of Disaster in Space (1981), dealing with attempts to rescue the crew of a seriously damaged space shuttle in orbit. This concept seemed more science-fictional in 1981 than now. [DRL]
Hyperspace
In sf Terminology, a kind of specialized space through which Spaceships can take a short cut in order to get rapidly from one point in "normal" space to another far distant. The term was probably invented by John W Campbell Jr in Islands of Space (Spring 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly; 1957). It is now so thoroughly incorporated into ...
Rodney, George Brydges
(1872-1950) US soldier and author, mostly of Westerns, though Edge of the World (1931) is a Lost World novel featuring hostilities between a Roman legion and Mayans before the "discovery" of America; and Beyond the Range (1934) describes the discovery of a Lost Race in more conventional mountainous backlands. [JC]
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 ...