SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Wednesday 6 December 2023
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 4 December 2023
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Compton, D G
(1930-2023) UK author, born of parents who were both in the theatre; he increasingly lived in the USA after 1981. As Guy Compton, he published some unremarkable detective novels, beginning with Too Many Murderers (1962), and as by Frances Lynch produced some nonfantastic Gothics throughout his career; but soon turned to sf with tales almost always set in the Near Future, and anatomizing moral dilemmas within that arena: the future is very clearly ...
Deegan, Jon J
A House Name created by Gordon Landsborough, editor of Authentic Science Fiction, and used perhaps exclusively by UK author Robert George Sharp for material published in that journal, which for some time early in its run filled each issue with one long story (in this encyclopedia, one-story issues are treated as books). The Old Growler space exploration series, ...
Hawthorne, Julian
(1846-1934) US author, journalist and anthologist, the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, of whom he wrote a biography, and father of writer Hildegarde Hawthorne (1871-1952). Julian forever lived in the shadow of his father and never mustered even a fraction of Nathaniel's reputation; indeed he sullied the family name when he became inadvertently involved in a speculation fraud in 1908 which made others rich and put him in gaol for a few months in 1913. In a ...
Payne, Rob
(1973- ) Canadian-born author, now in Australia, of the How to Save the World sequence, so far comprising How to Be a Hero on Earth 5 (2006), a Young Adult sf tale involving Parallel Worlds, and its sequel How to Save the World Again (2007). [JC]
Smith, E E [2]
In effect a pseudonym used by Gordon Eklund (whom see), who after expanding an old E E Smith story as Lord Tedric (March 1954 Universe by Smith; exp 1978) wrote further solo sequels variously credited as collaborations and as by Smith alone. [JC/DRL]
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 ...