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Tuesday 24 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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Fawcett, F Dubrez
(1891-1968) UK author active in various genres under his own name and several others from 1923; non-sf pseudonyms included Cass Borelli, Henri Dupres, Madame E Farra, "Griff", Eugene Glen, Duke Linton, Coolidge McCann, Elmer Eliot Saks, Ben Sarto and Hank Spencer. Much of his output consisted of such thrillers as Miss Otis Comes to Piccadilly (1946) as by Ben Sarto, and its many quite popular successors. The Wonderful Isle of Ulla-Gapoo ...
Byrne, Stuart J
(1913-2011) US screenwriter and author who began publishing sf with "The Music of the Spheres" in Amazing for August 1935. He was intermittently active after World War Two in the magazines, sometimes writing as John Bloodstone, a name he used also for some routine sf adventures, most notably the Star Man sequence [see Checklist below]. Also as Bloodstone, he wrote one Tarzan book, which the Edgar Rice ...
Boorman, John
(1933- ) UK film director, famous for movies like Point Blank (1967) and Deliverance (1972), who novelized his own Zardoz (1974) as Zardoz (1974) with Bill Stair (1939-1991). As a director he has also ventured into fantasy with Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and the Arthurian Excalibur (1981). The Tailor of Panama (2001), based on John Le Carré's ...
Boucher, Anthony
Best-known pseudonym of US editor and author William Anthony Parker White (1911-1968), who began to publish work of genre interest with "Ye Goode Olde Ghost Story" in Weird Tales for January 1927 as by William A P White, though his first full story was "Snulbug" in Unknown for December 1941 as Boucher (for a note on "Snulbug" and related titles see Shakespeare); he soon became a regular ...
Williams, F Chenhalls
(1880-1965) UK minister, inventor (he patented an improved sash window catch) and author of several novels, two of which are sf. The Inner Number (1927) features a thought-reading Machine (see Psionics) which generates a romantic melodrama; in The Potter's Wheel (1931) as F C Williams, a Mad Scientist dies horribly after attempting to kill his daughter with his ...
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 ...