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Tuesday 21 March 2023
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for 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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Hammill, Peter
British composer and musician, best known as the lead singer of Van der Graaf Generator. His solo releases, most of them similar to the prog-rock complexities of his group work, have been varied and, often, rather wayward. Popular success has eluded him although he inspires great devotion in his fans. "Imperial Zeppelin", on Hammill's first solo album Fool's Mate (1971), is an unusual example of steampunk SF-pop, possibly indebted to ...
MacCreagh, Gordon
(circa 1889-1953) Scottish traveller and author, in USA from 1911; he began publishing his tales of adventure in Pulp magazines from about 1913, some of these, like "The Hand of Saint Ury" (January 1951 Weird Tales), having supernatural content; his nonfiction, in particular The Last of Free Africa (1928) [for subtitle see Checklist], was widely read. Of sf interest are two Lost Race ...
Cussler, Clive
(1931-2020) US author, some titles in whose Dirk Pitt sequence of Technothrillers are of sf interest, beginning with The Mediterranean Caper (1973; vt May Day 1981). Supremely competent, irresistible to women, slightly sadistic, the James Bond-like Pitt is Special Projects Director for the (fictional) American National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which engages in spectacular underwater salvage operations ...
Schneeman, Charles
(1912-1972) American artist. After artistic training at the Pratt School of Art and Design and Grand Central School of Art, he began doing interior illustrations and occasional covers for John W Campbell Jr's Astounding Science-Fiction in the late 1930s. It is his interior illustrations that are best remembered, particularly those that accompanied Jack Williamson's The Legion of Time ...
Wood, James Playsted
(1905-1983) US teacher, editor and author whose works included a range of nonfiction as well as tales for the children and the Young Adult market. Of sf interest is The Mammoth Parade (1969), in which an eccentric entrepreneur discovers a Siberian Mammoth (see Prehistoric SF) in Rhode Island, and goes to ground with it in Central Park (see New York). Some ...
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 ...