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Monday 13 April 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 6 April 2026
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Jones, Matt
(1968- ) UK producer and writer for Television, mostly for British programmes with no fantastic content: he acted as script editor for Russell T Davies's Queer as Folk (1999-2000). Since 1995, however, he has been variously involved with Doctor Who, publishing two novels for the franchise: The New Adventures: Bad Therapy (1996) and ...
Zeddies, Ann Tonsor
(1951- ) US author whose Deathgift sequence covers considerable ground in its two volumes. Deathgift (1989), though not technically a Pocket-Universe tale, embodies a fundamental rhythm of constriction and release through the story of a young boy abandoned to the Native-American-like tribes that mediate among the medieval cities which surround them, and who only later is subject to a ...
Hansen, Vern
Working name of UK author Victor Joseph Hanson (1920-2001), who began publishing work of genre interest with "The Hands" for Occult Shorts #2 in 1946 as by V J Hanson, and author as Vern Hansen of some routine sf published over a brief span: The Twisters (coll 1963), Creatures of the Mist (1963), in which ape-like Aliens (see Apes as Human) invade from outer space, Claws of the Night ...
Andromeda Breakthrough, The
UK tv serial (1962). A BBC TV production. Produced by John Elliot, written Fred Hoyle, Elliot. Six episodes, five at 45 minutes, the sixth 50 minutes. Black and white. The cast included Peter Halliday, Mary Morris, Barry Linehan, John Hollis, Susan Hampshire. / In this sequel to A for Andromeda the android woman built according to instructions from the stars is played by Susan ...
Buffini, Moira
(1965- ) UK dramatist, screenwriter, actor, director and author, active from the late 1980s, best known for her plays, in several of which rambunctious anachronisms may represent an insertion of a perhaps somewhat stagey Fantastika into nonfantastic works. An early example is Silence (performed 1999; 1999 chap), in which complications attending the end of the first millennium CE are intensified by second-millennium shout-outs. ...
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 ...