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Saturday 8 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.
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Brizzolara, John
(1950-2016) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "The Opposite House" in Weird Tales for Fall 1981 with Diane Brizzolara (his wife). Over the next decade he published occasionally in the magazines – including Amazing Stories and Asimov's – and released one sf novel, Empire's Horizon (1989). This is a Space Opera whose ...
Brebner, Percy
(1864-1922) UK author of romantic adventures, under his own name and as by Christian Lys. Early novels by Lys include The Hepsworth Millions (1898), whose hints at supernatural explanations hardly aspire to the Equipoisal, and two novels of greater interest. The Fortress of Yadasara: A Narrative Prepared from the Manuscript of Clinton Verrall, Esq. (1898 Household Words; 1899; vt The Knight of the Silver Star 1907 US ...
Smith, Robert Arthur
(1944- ) UK-born author, in Canada from an early age; he is of sf interest for The Kramer Project (1975) as Robert A Smith, a Near Future Technothriller describing in a Cold War frame a conflict between the Russians and the West over the Invention of a serum capable of raising Intelligence, though ...
Darrow, Paul
(1941-2019) UK actor and author whose Avon: A Terrible Aspect (1989), a Tie to the Blake's 7 world, deals with the early life of the character Avon, whom he played in 51 of the 52 episodes of the original Television series. The Novel of Queen: The Eye (1997) novelizes an interactive Game created by the rock group Queen. / A ...
Cosmic Stories
1. See Amateur Magazine; Jerry Siegel. / 2. US Pulp magazine, three bimonthly issues, March to July 1941, edited by Donald A Wollheim. Cosmic Stories was one of two companion magazines (the other being Stirring Science Stories) started by Wollheim in 1941 and published by Albing ...
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 ...