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Tuesday 11 August 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 10 August 2026
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Crowley, John
(1942-2026) US teacher and author who also worked in documentary films and television for some time beginning in 1966. His sf novels have had a considerable impact on the field, and his fantasies established him as a figure whose work courteously but deeply stretched the boundaries of genre literature. / His first novel, The Deep (1975), is set on a flat discworld resting on a pillar that extends beyond measurement into the circumambient galactic Deep, in which very few stars ...
Legendary Stardust Cowboy, The
US singer-songwriter, born Norman Carl Odam (1947- ). Known to fans as "the Ledge", the Legendary Stardust Cowboy divides listeners into those who find his idiosyncratic and sporadic recordings to be nothing more than novelty records, and those who think very highly of his left-field, peculiar and space-travel-obsessed imagination. In the latter category is David Bowie, who has covered Legendary Stardust Cowboy songs on his own recordings. ...
Brock, Darryl
(1940- ) US teacher and author of the Samuel Clemens Fowler sequence of Time Travel tales comprising If I Never Get Back (1989) and Two in the Field (2002), whose protagonist travels back in time to 1869 and becomes engaged in the early days of professional Baseball, just at the verge of becoming the national sport. As the protagonist's name makes clear, elements of the series ...
Hérault, Paul-Jean
Pseudonym of French journalist and author Michel Rigaud (1934-2020), perhaps best known in France for his Cal de Ter sequence of Space Operas beginning with Le Rescapé de la Terre ["The Survivor of Earth"] (1975). Les Clones Deviants ["The Clone Deviants"] (2005; trans Michael Shreve as The Clone Rebellion 2015) is set in a Galactic Empire universe, with great armies of ...
Sheldon-Williams, Miles
(? -? ) UK author of a Lost Race tale, The Power of Ula (1906), set initially in London, where the eponymous white queen-in-waiting of an Aztec civilization descended from Atlantis hypnotizes the protagonists, who awaken in the Andes. Here, in the empire of Valdi, which is matriarchal, advanced Technology threatens male ...
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 ...