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Monday 23 May 2022
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.
Site updated on 23 May 2022
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Omen, Edward
Pseudonym of the unidentified UK author (? -? ) of Nutopia (Or Nineteen-Twenty-One) (1908), a Near Future Island Utopia, a land that flourishes under women's rule (see Feminism), with implications for the future of Britain. [JC]
Skimin, Robert
(1929-2011) US author of historical novels and studies, and of at least two Alternate History fictions in which the American nineteenth century is tweaked. The Jonbar Point in Gray Victory (1988) is Confederate President Jefferson Davis's decision not to replace the commander of the Atlanta, Georgia defences; Atlanta is not destroyed, and America remains divided into two nations. Courtroom intrigues, and a botched attempt at terrorism on behalf of slaves – who have not been freed (see ...
Schneider, Robert
(1961- ) Austrian playwright and author whose first novel, Schlafes Bruder (1992; trans Shaun Whiteside as Brother of Sleep 1995), edges into sf-tinted Fantastika through the life of its protagonist, Jophannes Elias Alder, a nineteenth-century musical prodigy (see Music) whose precocious compositions are made possible through what might be described as a Psi Power: an ability essentially to hear all sounds, and to transform them. A kind of liebestod overwhelms him aged ...
Flynn, John L
(1954- ) US academic and author, mostly of nonfiction studies in sf Cinema, including Dissecting Aliens: Terror in Space (1995), on the Alien sequence of films, and War of the Worlds: From Wells to Spielberg (2005). Short fiction has been assembled in Visions in Light and Shadow (coll 2001); in his awkward first novel, The Jovian Dilemma (2006), a corrupt politician from Earth, sent to Jupiter to oversee the exploitation of desperately needed energy sources, is faced with ...
Stemp, Jane
(1961- ) UK author of Waterbound (1995), a Young Adult Near Future Dystopia set in a world beset by Ecological degradation, where the healthy live in grimly regulated Keeps and those who are deemed unfit (see Eugenics) must somehow survive Underground. The young protagonist and her love interest explore the implications of this. This novel precedes the great twenty-first century wave of tales that may be similarly described. [JC]
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, and Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms (1987) is similarly exhaustive in its listing of Pseudonyms. Criticized at first for its failure to annotate its findings – so that, for instance, pseudonyms used for sf could not be ...