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Thursday 19 June 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.
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Forsyth, Frederick
(1938-2025) UK author who gained fame with his first novel, The Day of the Jackal (1971), and whose books are generally political thrillers. The Shepherd (1975 chap), however, is a sentimental Timeslip or ghost fantasy in which a pilot on Christmas Eve 1957 is saved from crashing by a World War Two pilot in an antique bomber: pilot and plane had been shot down on the Christmas Eve of 1943. ...
Hessenstein, Countess Gabrielle
(? - ) Author – whose nationality has not been discovered and whose given name also appears in library catalogues as Gabriele – of Monkey Paradise: A Tale of the Jungle (trans E J R-S 1945), for which no original version has been found; it is a Satire hovering between sf and fantasy, in which a captured chimpanzee is taught human behaviour (see Apes as Human), escapes ...
Swedenborg, Emanuel
(1688-1772) Swedish scientist, philosopher and theologian. The first half of his career was devoted to investigations into a number of scientific fields, from mathematics and physics to geology, during which period, in letters written in 1714-1715, and elsewhere, he suggested the possibility of winged flying machines. In 1743-1745 he underwent a visionary experience, after which most of his writings became mystical. These later writings, which influenced the British ...
Mitchell, Silas Weir
(1829-1914) US physician, neurologist and author, of considerable eminence for his original research – he published at least 172 papers from 1852 on neurophysiology and related subjects. His theory that female depression could be cured through a tyrannical rest cure that that required patients to remain isolated and passive for long periods inspired The Yellow Wall Paper (January 1892 New England Magazine; 1899) by Charlotte Perkins ...
Du Bois, Gaylord
(1899-1993) US Comics writer, with over 3000 comic-book scripts credited to him under his own (which he also gave as DuBois) and other names, including Hal Forrest and Buck Wilson; he also wrote a number of Big Little Books. He specialized in non-fantastic animal stories, and in Westerns, and his work in the fantastic is generally restricted to cartoon characters like Raggedy Ann or ...
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 ...