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Saturday 13 June 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 8 June 2026
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Duffy, Maureen
(1933-2026) UK author, active from around 1950, several of whose books focused on London, including Capital (1975), a complex set of era-switching meditations – including a Neanderthal man's thoughts about the future – on the deep mythos of the city. The novel influenced Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988) (as the author acknowledged clearly), and similar later works by Iain ...
MacLeod, Sheila
(1939- ) Scottish author, married 1963-1976 to actor and pop singer Paul Jones (see Privilege), an experience reflected in her first novel, The Moving Accident (1968), which is nonfantastic. Her second, The Snow-White Soliloquies (1970), is a Fabulation with surprisingly firm sf underpinning, describing in technological terms the ...
Straczynski, J Michael
(1954- ) US Television producer, playwright, journalist and author, who began to publish work of genre interest with "A Last Testament for Nick and the Trooper" in Shadows 6 (anth 1983) edited by Charles L Grant; his first novel, Demon Night (1988), like most of his fiction not connected to his television work, has been horror; further titles include OtherSyde ...
Titterton, W R
(1876-1963) UK journalist, biographer, poet and author, perhaps best known for his long friendship and professional association with G K Chesterton, which he commemorated in a biography, G K Chesterton: A Portrait (1947). He also published a life of George Bernard Shaw, So This Is Shaw (1945 chap). The title tale assembled in The Death Ray Dictator and Other Stories (coll 1946) ...
Atlantis
The legend of Atlantis, an advanced civilization on a continent (or large Island) in the middle of the Atlantic which was overwhelmed by some geological cataclysm, has its earliest extant source in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias (circa 350 BCE). The legend can be seen as a parable of the Fall of Man, and writers who have since embroidered the story have generally shown less interest in the cataclysm itself than ...
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 ...