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Tuesday 13 October 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 12 October 2026
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Edwards, Malcolm
(1949-2026) UK editor, critic and publisher, educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in anthropology. Active in UK sf Fandom in the 1970s and early 1980s, he published the first complete text of James Blish's "The Science in Science Fiction" (May 1951-May 1952 Science Fiction Quarterly) in his Fanzine Quicksilver #2 in 1971; edited the ...
Wright, Jack
Unidentified author (? -? ), perhaps pseudonymous, of the Scout Patrol Boys sequence, beginning with The Scout Patrol Boys at Circle U Ranch (1933), all four being published the same year. Of most sf interest is the second, The Scout Patrol Boys Exploring in Yucatan (1933), in which the lads discover a Lost Race in the mountainous heart of Mexico. [JC]
Zahn, Timothy
(1951- ) US author with a master's degree in physics who began publishing sf with "Ernie" in Analog for September 1979, and early proved himself an adept and productive creator of the problem-oriented Hard SF characteristic of that magazine. Some better examples of his work are assembled as Cascade Point (coll 1986), Time Bomb and Zahndry Others (coll 1988), ...
McLaren, Jack
(1884-1954) Australian author, in UK in later life, prolific in various genres, specializing in adventure tales, some of them exotic. Of direct sf interest is The Devil of the Depths: A Strange Story of the South Seas (1935), whose protagonist encounters a number of challenges Under the Sea and on a mysterious South Pacific Island, including Monsters, sentient ...
Zecca, Ferdinand
(1864-1947) Pioneering French filmmaker (see Cinema) who directed over 160 films between 1899 and 1915 (plus one in 1919), virtually all for Pathé Frères. Subject matter included Religion, history, Fantasy, melodrama and moral tales, as well as one about a hotel employee who peeps through keyholes. / Only a few of his films are sf. One is Le Voleur Invisible ...
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 ...