SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Saturday 8 February 2025
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 3 February 2025
Sponsor of the day: Andy Richards of Cold Tonnage Books
Sarrantonio, Al
(1952-2025) US editor and author who began publishing work of genre interest with "Ahead of the Joneses" in Asimov's for March 1979. Much of his work was horror, sometimes tinged with sf (see Horror in SF), including his first novel, The Worms (1985), a Gothic tale set in Massachusetts with hints of H P Lovecraft; and the Equipoisal Moonbane ...
Naylor, Grant
Joint pseudonym of UK scriptwriters and authors Rob Grant (see his entry for solo works) and Doug Naylor (see his entry for solo title), who worked for three years as head writers for Spitting Image (1984-1996), a satirical television series using a combination of puppets and live action, and who wrote the Red Dwarf (1988-current) television series, which weds black humour and ...
Slote, Alfred
(1926- ) US author for children and the Young Adult market, of sf interest mainly for his Robot Buddy sequence beginning with My Robot Buddy (1975), in which a boy is given an Android companion capable of perfectly mimicking human behaviour. The two have adventures around the planet, and later into space, trips which require Cryonic freezing to accomplish. In ...
Staton, Mary
(circa 1944- ) US author in whose first novel, From the Legend of Biel (1975), a team of explorers from Earth awakens from Suspended Animation and attempts to solve the mysteries presented by a previously inhabited planet, now abandoned except for an array of enigmatic structures. Once the code they embed has been solved by the tale's protagonist, the story of Biel – a female inhabitant of the earlier ...
Brereton, Captain F S
(1872-1957) UK soldier and physician, who served as such in World War One, and children's author on the model of G A Henty (1832-1902), most of both authors' works being historical fictions for boys; the sometimes repeated claim that these two authors were related is false. Brereton usually signed his books as by Captain Brereton, though he was eventually promoted beyond that rank. The Great Aeroplane: A Thrilling Tale of Adventure (1911) is an ...
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 ...