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Monday 10 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.
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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 ...
Birds of Prey
US tv series (2002-2003). Warner Brothers Television and DC Entertainment with Tollin/Robbins Productions for the WB Television Network. Based on characters created by Gardner F Fox, Carmine Infantino, Bob Kane, Bob Layton, Paul Levitz, John Ostrander, Jerry Robinson, Jo Staton, others. Producers included Peter Giuliano, Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis. Directors included Jim Charleston, Chris Long, Brian Robbins. Writers ...
Powell, Van
(1886-? ) US screenwriter and author of some sf interest for at least two of his series of adventures for boys: the Mystery Boys series of adventures for boys, all five volumes – including The Mystery Boys and the Inca Gold (1931), a Lost Race tale – being published simultaneously; and the Sky Scout Airplane Boys sequence beginning with The Mystery Crash ...
Leroux, Gaston
(1868-1927) French author of mystery novels who remains best known for Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (23 September 1909-8 January 1910 Le Gaulois; 1910; trans Alexander Texeira de Mattos as The Phantom of the Opera 1911), a tale of horror filmed in 1925 (re-released with sound 1930), 1943, 1962, 1983 (for television), 1989 and 1990 (for television) and used as the basis for the highly successful 1986 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber ...
Knudtsen, Ingar, Jr
(1944- ) One of Norway's most popular and productive sf authors, with thirty books to his credit. Since childhood he had been interested in astronomy and space exploration, and always did his best to keep the scientific details in his writing as correct as possible. His style was highly visual, with short, descriptive sentences which efficiently moved the story forward. He often wrote from a Feminist point of view, ...
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 reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...