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Tuesday 8 July 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.
Site updated on 7 July 2025
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McCaffrey, Anne
(1926-2011) US-born professional horsebreeder and author, in Ireland from the 1970s; mother of Gigi McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey. Most of her output was sf, though tinged with the tone and instruments of Fantasy: much of her main work, the enormous Pern sequence of Planetary Romance adventures (see below) is normally experienced as fantasy. She began ...
Michels, Christine
(1957- ) Canadian author of several romantic Space Operas. To Share a Sunset (1990) with Bernice Carstensen (? - ), writing together as Sharice Kendyl, is a Planetary Romance set on a planet whose habitable portions are threatened by a great Wastelands, which the protagonists must cross while becoming involved with one another. ...
Urban, Simon
(1975- ) German author of sf interest for Plan D (2011; trans Katy Derbyshire 2013), an Alternate History Dystopia in which, having survived the turmoil or "wende" of 1989-1990, the German Democratic Republic struggles against inherent dogma and corruption until 2011, becoming increasingly similar to the kind of world George ...
Phillips, Holly
(1969- ) Canadian author who began to publish work of genre interest with "No Such Thing As an Ex-Con" in On Spec for Summer 2000; much of her early work, not including this story, was assembled as In the Palace of Repose (coll 2005), most of the contents being best read as fantasy; a later collection, At the Edge of Waking (coll 2012), is fantasy. "The Other Grace", however, neatly ...
Flecker, James Elroy
(1884-1915) UK poet, playwright and author best known for Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Bagdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand (1922), a Fantasy play with an Arabian Nights flavour, which further popularized a once-famous catch-phrase "We take the Golden Road to Samarkand" from his poem "The Golden Journey to Samarkand" in The Golden Journey to Samarkand (coll 1913 chap), about the yearning for the unattainable, ...
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 ...